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THE  LIBRARY  OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF 

NORTH  CAROLINA 

AT  CHAPEL  HILL 


ENDOWED  BY  THE 

DIALECTIC  AND  PHILANTHROPIC 

SOCIETIES 


BSkhS 

.S65 

1912a 


Spit 

UUU i 55 10029 


This  book  is  due  at  the  LOUIS  R.  WILSON  LIBRARY  on  the 
last  date  stamped  under  "Date  Due."  If  not  on  hold  it  may  be 
renewed  by  bringing  it  to  the  library. 

DATE                    DirT 
DUE                       RET 

DATE                   nVT 
DUE                       KtI- 

LL 

DEC  2  8 

1998 

— 

11 UA  A 

5  200P 

4W  v 

/.,;-.._ 

lUG     3  21 

[f\ 

, 

573 

" 

Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2013 


http://archive.org/details/howwegotourbibleOsmyt 


DIAGRAM  SHOWING  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  B1  RT.F. 


(st  Century 


VERSIONS  FATHERS 

/ 


4th  Century 


9th  Century 


14th  Century 


j'Sth  Century 


17th  Century 


19th  Century         REVISED  A  VERSION 


((i)  Contents  of  Original  Manuscripts  (now  lost)  survive  in  the  existing 
Manuscripts,    Versions,   and  Fathers.      (See  p.  io.) 

(2)  The  Latin  Vulgate  (a  revision  of  the  Old  Latin  Versions  by  comparison 
with  Greek  and  Hebrew  Manuscripts)  is  the  source  of  our  English  Versions 
down  to  Tyndale.     He  first  draws  from  manuscript  sources  but  of  modern  date. 

(3)  The  three  sources— Manuscripts,  Versions,  and  Fathers — are  al) 
combined  for  the  first  time  in  the  recent  Revision. 


^otu  Wt  <§>ot  #ur  piffle 


BY 

J.  PATERSON  SMYTH 

B.D.,  LL.D.,  LITT.D.,  D.C.L. 

Author  of  "The  Bible  in  the  Making"  "How  God  Inspired  the 

Bible,"  "The  Ancient  Documents  and  the  Modern  Bible" 

"Hozv  to   Read  the   Bible,"   "The  Story   of  St. 

Paul's  Life  and  Letters" 


HARPER  &  BROTHERS   PUBLISHERS 

NEW  YORK  AND   LONDON 


Copyright,  1899,  1912,  by  Harper  &  Brothers 
Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


New  and  Revised  Edition,  April,  19 12 


CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  I. 
SOURCES  OF  OUR  BIBLE. 

PAGES 

I.  The  Old  Record  Chest.  2.  Copyists'  Errors.  3.  Neces- 
sity of  Revision.  4.  Sources  of  Information  Open  to 
Revisers.     5.  Textual  Criticism i-io 

CHAPTER  II. 

ANCIENT  MANUSCRIPTS. 

The  Oldest  Bibles  in  the  World.  1.  The  Vatican  Manu- 
script. 2.  The  Sinai  tic  Manuscript.  3.  The  Alex- 
andrian. 4.  Palimpsests.  5.  The  Manuscript  of  Beza. 
6.  Cursive  Manuscripts.     7.  Old  Testament  Revision.       11-29 

CHAPTER  III. 

ANCIENT  VERSIONS  AND  QUOTATIONS. 

1.  Various  Early  Versions.  2.  An  ancient  "Revised 
Bible."  3.  How  Revision  was  regarded  fifteen  cen- 
turies ago.  4.  Advantage  of  this  investigation.  5. 
Quotations  from  Ancient  Fathers 30-41 

CHAPTER  IV. 

EARLY  ENGLISH   VERSIONS. 

I.  The  Bible  Poet.  2.  Eadhelm  and  Egbert.  3.  The 
Monk  of  Yarrow.  4.  A  Royal  Translator.  5.  Cu- 
rious Expressions 42-56 

iii 


530054  • 


CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  V. 
WYCUFFES  VERSION. 

PAGES 

I.  Growth  of  the  Language.  2.  The  Parish  Priest  of  Lut- 
terworth. 3.  The  State  of  the  Church.  4.  The  Bible 
for  the  People.  5.  Wycliffe  as  a  Reformer.  6.  His 
Death.    7.  His  Bible.    8.  Results  of  his  Work S7"79 

CHAPTER  VI. 

TYNDALES   VERSION. 

1.  Printing.  2.  The  Renaissance.  3.  William  Tyndale. 
4.  The  First  Printed  New  Testament.  5.  Clerical 
Opposition.  6.  The  Bible  and  the  Church.  7.  Two 
Types  of  Reformers.  8.  Pakington  and  the  Bishop. 
9.  Scene  at  St.  Edwards.  10.  The  Death  of  Tyndale. 
11.  The  Tyndale  Bible 80-111 

CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  BIBLE  AFTER  TYND ALE'S  DAYS. 

1.  Three  Years  After.     2.  Twenty  Years  After.    3.  Fifty 

Years  More  Gone  By 112-132 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE  REVISED   VERSION. 

1.  Preparation  for  Revision.  2.  The  Jerusalem  Chamber. 
3.  The  Revisers  at  Work.  4.  Claims  of  the  Revised 
Bible.  *  5.  Should  it  Disturb  Men's  Faith?  6.  General 
Remarks.    7.  Conclusion I33"IS3 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTEATIOFS. 


FACING 

Diagram  Showing  how  we  got  our  Bible Title  Page 

Photograph  of  Ancient  Greek  Manuscripts 10 

Photograph  of  the  Slnattic  Manuscript 16 

Photograph  of  the  Codex  Ephraem 22 

Photograph  of  the  Codex  Bez^e 24 

Photograph  of  iELFRic's  Anglo-Saxon  Bible 54 

Photograph  of  Wycllffe's  Bible 76 

Photograph  of  Tyndale's  New  Testament. 108 

v 


HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE 
CHAPTER  I. 

SOURCES  OF  OUR  BIBLE. 

I.  The  Old  Record  Chest.  II.  Copyists'  Errors.  III.  Necessity 
of  Revision.  IV.  Sources  of  Information  open  to  Revisers. 
V.  Textual  Criticism. 

Let  the  scope  of  this  book  be  clearly  under- 
stood. The  question  How  we  got  our  Bible  is  a 
very  wide  one  and  the  full  answer  should  tell  of 
the  making  of  the  Bible  and  the  writers  of  the 
Books  and  the  ancient  historical  material  which 
they  used  and  also  how  it  happened  that  this  par- 
ticular collection  of  books  came  to  be  separated 
from  the  other  literature  of  the  time  and  regarded 
as  inspired  and  collected  into  a  Bible.  This  part 
of  the  answer  I  have  already  tried  to  give  in 
another  book. 

The  present  treatise  takes  the  answer  at  a  later 
stage  when  the  books  were  already  completed  and 
received  as  the  inspired  guide  of  the  Church.  It 
traces  the  story  of  the  Bible  from  the  early  manu- 


2  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

scripts  of  Apostolic  days  down  to  the  last  Revised 
Version  which  is  in  our  hands  to-day.1 


I. 

We  begin  by  imagining  before  us  the  record 
chest  of  one  of  the  early  Christian  churches,— say 
Jerusalem,  or  Rome,  or  Ephesus, — about  120 
A.  D.,  when  sufficient  time  had  elapsed  since  the 
completion  of  the  New  Testament  writings  to 
allow  most  of  the  larger  churches  to  procure  copies 
for  themselves.  In  any  one  church,  perhaps,  we 
should  not  find  very  much,  but  if  we  collect  to- 
gether the  documents  of  some  of  the  leading 
churches  we  should  have  before  us  something  of 
this  sort: 

iThe  writer  has  issued  a  full  series'  of  books  on  the  making 
of  the  Bible  which  should  be  read,  as  far  as  possible,  in  the 
order  stated: 

I.  The  Bible  in  the  Making. 

in  the  light  of  modern  research. 
This  is  the  book  referred  to  on  previous  page. 

II.  How  We  Got  Our  Bible. 

III.  The  Ancient  Documents  and  the  Modern  Bible.  # 

An   easy   lesson   for  the   people  on  textual  criticism; 
with  plates  and  fac-similes. 

IV.  How  God  Inspired  the  Bible. 

Thoughts  for  the  present  disquiet  about  Higher  Criti- 
cism. 

V.  How  to  Read  the  Bible. 

Suggestions  on  reading  the  Divine  Library. 

VL  The  Story  of  St.  Paul's  Life  and  Letters. 


SOURCES  OF  OUR  BIBLE.  3 

I.  Some  manuscripts  of  the  Hebrew  Old  Testa- 
ment books. 

The  reader  will  keep  in  mind  that  the  Old  Testament  books 
were  originally  written  in  Hebrew,  those  of  the  New 
Testament  in  Greek. 

II.  A  good  many  more  of  the  Old  Testament 
books  translated  into  Greek  for  general  use  in  the 
churches,  Greek  being  the  language  most  widely 
known  at  the  time. 

This  translation  is  called  the  Septuagint,  or  "  Version  of  the 
Seventy/'  from  an  old  tradition  of  its  having  been 
prepared  by  seventy  learned  Jews  of  Alexandria.  It 
was  made  at  different  times,  beginning  somewhere 
about  280  B.  c,  and  was  the  version  commonly  used  by 
the  Evangelists  and  Apostles.  This  accounts  for  the 
slight  difference  we  sometimes  notice  between  the  Old 
Testament  and  their  quotations  from  it,  our  Old  Testa- 
ment being  translated  direct  from  the  Hebrew. 

III.  A  few  rolls  of  the  Apocryphal  Books,  writ- 
ten by  holy  men  in  the  Church,  and  valued  for  the 
practical  teaching  they  contained. 

IV.  Copies  of  the  Gospels  and  the  Acts,  the 
Epistles  of  SS.  Paul  and  Peter  and  John,  and  the 
Book  of  the  Revelation. 

II. 

Now  let  us  remember  clearly  that  as  we  look 
into  that  old  record  chest  of  nearly  1800  years 
ago,  we  have  before  us  all  the  sources  from  which 
we  get  our  Bible. 

And  remember  further  that  these  writings  were 


4  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

of  course  all  manuscript,  i.  e.f  written  by  the  hand, 
and  that  copies  when  needed  had  each  to  be  writ- 
ten out,  letter  by  letter,  at  a  great  expense  of  time 
and  trouble,  and  of  course,  very  often  too  at  some 
expense  of  the  original  correctness.  However 
careful  the  scribe  might  be,  it  was  almost  impos- 
sible, in  copying  a  long  and  difficult  manuscript,  to 
prevent  the  occurrence  of  errors.  Sometimes  he 
would  mistake  one  letter  for  another — sometimes, 
if  having  the  manuscript  read  to  him,  he  would 
confound  two  words  of  similar  sound — sometimes 
after  writing  in  the  last  word  of  a  line,  on  looking 
up  again  his  eye  would  catch  the  same  word  at  the 
end  of  the  next  line,  and  he  would  go  on  from  that, 
omitting  the  whole  line  between.  Remarks  and 
explanations,  too,  written  in  the  margin  might 
sometimes  in  transcribing  get  inserted  in  the  text, 
In  these  and  various  other  ways  errors  might 
creep  into  the  copy  of  his  manuscript.  These 
errors  would  be  repeated  by  the  man  that  after- 
ward copied  from  this,  who  would  also  sometimes 
add  other  errors  of  his  own.  So  that  it  is  evident, 
as  copies  increased,  the  errors  would  be  likely  to 
increase  with  them,  and  therefore,  as  a  general 

rule,1  THE  EARLIER  ANY  MANUSCRIPT,  THE  MORE 
LIKELY  IT  IS  TO  BE  CORRECT. 

1  This  is  only  a  general  rule.  Of  course  it  is  quite  possible  for 
a  manuscript  A.  D.  1500  to  be  copied  direct  from  one  of  a.  d.  300, 
and  therefore  to  be  more  correct  than  some  a  thousand  years 
older. 


SOURCES  OF  OUR  BIBLE.  5 

The  reader  may  easily  test  this  for  himself  by 
copying  a  dozen  pages  of  a  book,  then  hand  on  the 
copy  to  a  friend  to  recopy,  and  let  him  pass  on  to 
another  what  he  has  written,  and  so  have  the 
operation  repeated  through  six  or  eight  different 
hands  before  comparing  the  last  copy  with  the 
original.  It  will  be  an  interesting  illustration  of 
the  danger  of  errors  in  copying.  Even  in  printed 
Bibles,  whose  proofs  have  been  carefully  examined 
and  reexamined,  these  mistakes  creep  in.  To  take 
two  examples  out  of  many:  An  edition  published 
in  1653,  reads  1  Cor.  vi.  9,  "  Know  ye  not  that  the 
unrighteous  shall  inherit  the  kingdom  of  God;  " 
and  the  "  Printer's  Bible,"  much  sought  by  book 
collectors,  puts  the  strange  anachronism  in  King 
David's  mouth,  "  Printers  have  persecuted  me 
without  a  cause  "  (Ps.  cxix.  161). 

We  know,  of  course,  God  might  have  miracu- 
lously prevented  scribes  and  compositors  from 
making  these  mistakes ;  but  it  does  not  seem  to  be 
God's  way  anywhere  to  work  miracles  for  us 
where  our  own  careful  use  of  the  abilities  He  has 
given  would  suffice  for  the  purpose. 


HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 


III. 

Although,  owing  to  the  special  care  exercised  in 
transcribing  the  Scriptures,1  the  errors  would  be  in 
most  cases  of  comparatively  trifling  importance, 
yet  it  is  evident  from  what  has  been  said  about  the 
growth  of  copyists'  errors,  that  in  the  course  of  the 
centuries  before  the  invention  of  printing,  Bible 
manuscripts  might  easily  have  grown  very  faulty 
indeed.  Therefore  the  printed  Bibles,  taken 
hastily  from  these  modern  and  probably  corrupt 
manuscripts,  would  need  a  thorough  revision,  and 
this  revision  would  need  to  be  repeated  again  and 
again,  as  facilities  increased,  till  the  Scriptures 
were  as  nearly  as  possible  as  they  left  the  inspired 
writers'  hands. 

But  how  is  this  revision  to  be  accomplished?  Of 
course,  if  the  original  writings  had  remained,  it 
would  be  quite  a  simple  operation,  as  a  careful 
comparison  with  them  would  at  any  time  discover 
whatever  had  need  of  correction.    But,  it  is  hardly 

1  As  an  interesting  instance  of  the  care  exercised  in  transcrib- 
ing important  documents,  Irenaeus,  Bishop  of  Lyons,  in  the  second 
century,  thus  writes  in  one  of  his  own  books:  "Whosoever  thou 
art  who  shalt  transcribe  this  book,  I  charge  thee  with  an  oath 
by  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  by  His  glorious  appearing,  in 
which  He  cometh  to  judge  the  quick  and  dead,  that  thou  care- 
fully compare  what  thou  hast  transcribed,  and  correct  it  accord- 
ing to  this  copy  whence  thou  hast  transcribed  it,  and  thou 
transcribe  this  oath  in  like  manner,  and  place  it  in  thy  copy." 
Farther  on  I  shall  have  to  notice  the  solemn  reverential  care 
bestowed  by  the  Hebrew  scribes  on  copies  of  the  Old  Testament 


SOURCES  OF  OUR  BIBLE.  7 

necessary  to  say,  the  original  writings  have  long 
since  disappeared.  Some  of  them,  written  on  the 
common  writing  material  of  the  day, — the  papyrus 
paper  referred  to  in  2  John,  ver.  12, — very  soon 
got  worn  out  from  use,1  others  were  lost  or  de- 
stroyed in  the  early  Christian  persecutions.  In 
any  case  they  have  totally  disappeared. 

How  then  is  revision  to  be  accomplished?  In 
the  absence  of  these  original  manuscripts,  what 
sources  of  information  are  open  to  Bible  revisers? 

IV. 

For  answer  let  us  turn  from  the  ancient  record 
chest,  whose  contents  are  now  irrecoverably  lost, 
and  imagine  beneath  some  oaken  library  roof  a 
vast  mass  of  manuscripts,  piled  up  before  us  in 
THREE  separate  heaps, — manuscripts  of  very 
varied  kind — stained  and  torn  old  parchments — 
books  of  faded  purple,  lettered  with  silver — beau- 
tifully designed  ornamental  pages — bundles  of  fine 
vellum,  yellow  with  age,  bright  even  yet  with  the 
gold  and  vermilion  laid  on  by  pious  hands  a  thou- 
sand years  since — in  many  shapes,  in  many 
colours,  in  many  languages, — thousands  of  old 
Scripture  writings  reaching  back  for  1500  years. 

1  Jerome  tells  of  such  a  library  in  Caesarea,  already  partly 
destroyed  within  a  century  after  its  formation,  and  of  the  en- 
deavors of  two  presbyters  to  restore  the  manuscripts  by  copying 
them  on  parchment. 


8  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

This  pile  represents  the  great  Biblical  treasures 
stored  up  to-day  in  the  various  libraries  of  Europe 
— all  the  old  copies  at  present  remaining  of  the 
inspired  Books.  And  here  in  this  mass  of  old 
manuscripts  is  the  material  accessible  to  scholars 
for  the  purpose  of  Bible  revision. 

In  these  piles  we  shall  find  three  different  classes 
of  writings :  ( i )  These  faded  parchments,  with 
the  crowded  square  lettering,  are  copies  in  the 
original  languages  of  the  different  Scriptures  con- 
tained in  the  old  record  chest.  These  are  known 
as  Biblical  "  manuscripts,''  for  though  all  the 
early  Scriptures  are  of  course  written  by  the  hand, 
the  name  manuscripts  has  been  by  common  consent 
of  scholars  appropriated  to  the  copies  in  the  origi- 
nal tongue. 

(2)  But  those  farther  on  are  evidently  different 
in  language,  the  writing,  at  least  of  the  few  whose 
pages  are  visible,  being  so  very  unlike  the  others. 
That  open  manuscript  on  the  top,  written  all  over 
in  running  lines  and  loops,  is  a  Syriac  translation, 
the  two  next  are  Coptic  and  Latin,  and  all  these 
are  ancient  versions,  i.  e.,  translations  of  the 
Bible  into  the  languages  of  early  Christendom, 
some  of  them  representing  the  Scriptures  of  about 
fifty  years  after  the  death  of  St.  John. 

(3)  The  contents  of  the  third  pile,  though  a 
good  deal  resembling  the  Biblical  manuscripts  in 
appearance,  are  not  even  books  of  the  Scriptures 


SOURCES  OF  OUR  BIBLE.  9 

at  all,  but  writings  of  the  early  Christian 
Fathers  from  the  second  to  the  fifth  century. 
The  use  of  these  we  shall  see  afterwards. 


The  science  that  deals  with  this  mass  of  evi- 
dence is  called  "  textual  criticism/'  a  science  which, 
though  only  in  its  infancy  when  our  Authorized 
Version  was  issued,  has  reached  in  the  present  day 
a  very  high  degree  of  perfection.  Suppose  then 
our  revisers,  men  skilled  in  this  study,  are  occu- 
pied on  say  a  passage  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Ro- 
mans, desiring  to  present  it  as  nearly  as  possible 
as  it  left  the  hands  of  St.  Paul,  how  will  they  make 
use  of  this  mass  of  evidence? 

I.  They  will  search  for  the  very  oldest  Greek 
manuscripts  in  which  the  Epistle  occurs,  for,  as  we 
have  already  seen,  the  oldest  are  likely  to  be  the 
most  correct,  and  they  will  get  as  many  as  possible 
of  them  to  compare  them  together  for  the  elimi- 
nating any  errors  that  may  have  crept  in,  for  it  is 
evident  that  if  a  number  of  copies  are  made  of  the 
same  original,  even  should  each  of  the  copyists 
have  erred,  no  two  are  likely  to  make  exactly  the 
same  error,  therefore  a  false  reading  in  any  one 
can  often  be  corrected  by  comparison  with  the 
others. 


10  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

II.  Then  they  will  examine  the  ancient  versions f 
and  see  how  the  passage  in  question  was  read  in 
Syriac  and  Latin  and  other  ancient  languages  1700 
years  ago. 

III.  But  what  use  can  they  make  of  the  rest  of 
the  parchments — those  writings  of  the  early 
Christian  Fathers?  A  very  important  use.  They 
search  these  carefully  for  quotations  from  this 
Epistle.  These  early  Fathers  quoted  Scripture  so 
largely  in  their  controversies  that  it  has  been  said 
if  all  the  other  sources  of  the  Bible  were  lost,  we 
could  recover  the  greater  part  of  it  from  their 
writings.  The  most  important  of  them  lived  in 
the  second,  third,  and  fourth  centuries,  and  as  they 
of  course  quote  from  the  Scriptures  in  use  in  their 
time,  it  is  like  going  back  sixteen  hundred  years 
to  ask  men,  How  did  your  Scripture  render  this 
passage  of  St.  Paul?  Unfortunately  their  quota- 
tions seem  often  made  from  memory,  which  a 
good  deal  spoils  the  value  of  their  testimony. 

The  sources  of  information,  then,  open  to 
revisers  may  be  briefly  summed  up  as — 

I.  Manuscripts.  II.  Versions.  III.  Quota- 
tions from  the  Fathers.1  Each  of  these  will  be 
treated  of  more  fully  in  the  following  chapters. 

1  See  Diagram  facing  the  title-page. 


CA/VHM03H 

Ner*K.eNM> 

toyckMOI 

T. 


p^THVlAilUlNf 


^  »CH *e O  MJLe HAWT6C 0 1  ^J^C 

TriccVN    rturHCKwxwHi 


rrei«A 


|.  w 


£arfy   Creek  7H4j 


PHOTOGRAPH  OF  ANCIENT  GREEK  MANUSCRIPTS: 

(From  Westwood's  Paleograpkia  Sacra  Pictoria.) 

I.  Scrap  of  a  famous  Greek  Manuscript  of  Genesis,  (Codex  Geueseos 

Cottonianus), 
j.  Portions  oi  its  writing,  full  size. 

).  Facsimile  of    the   Alexandrian   Codex    u»   the   British   Museum. 
4.  A  portion  of  a  9th  Century  Manuscript. 
*.  Beginning  of  2Qth  Psalm  on  Paovms  in  the  British  Mustum 


CHAPTER  II. 

ANCIENT  MANUSCRIPTS. 

The  Oldest  Bibles  in  the  World.  I.  The  Vatican  Manuscript. 
II.  The  Sinaitic  Manuscript.  III.  The  Alexandrian.  IV. 
Palimpsests.  V.  The  Manuscript  of  Beza.  VI.  Cursive 
Manuscripts.     VII.  Old  Testament  Revision. 

Let  us  still  keep  imaged  before  our  minds  the 
triple  pile  of  Biblical  writings  to  be  examined. 

We  come  first  to  the  manuscripts,  the  copies  3 
of  the  Scripture  in  the  original  tongues.  Of  the 
Greek  there  is  quite  a  large  number — more  than 
1500 — before  us,  and  from  the  difference  in  their 
condition  and  general  appearance  one  is  inclined 
to  suspect  that  they  must  vary  a  good  deal  in  age, 
and  therefore  probably  in  value.  The  question  of 
determining  the  age  of  a  manuscript  is  a  very 
intricate  one;  but  it  should  make  our  inspection 
of  these  the  more  interesting  if  I  briefly  state  a  few 
easy  marks  to  guide  us : 

The  form  of  the  letters  is  the  chief  guide.  The 
oldest  and  therefore  most  valuable  are  written  in 

1  The  reader  should  keep  this  distinction  clearly  before  him  to 
prevent  confusion.  MANUSCRiPTS=copies  in  the  original  tongue. 
VERSiONS=:translations  into  other  tongues. 

2  " 


12  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

capital  letters,  and  without  any  division  between 
the  words,  as  if  we  should  write 

NOWWHENJSWASBORNINBETHLEHEMOFJ. 

These  are  called  uncial  manuscripts.  The  mod- 
ern are  written  in  a  running  hand  like  our  writing, 
and  are  therefore  called  cursive.  (It  will  be  useful 
to  remember  these  names,  as  they  frequently 
occur  in  Bible  commentaries,  and  in  criticisms  of 
the  Revised  Version.) 

Then  again,  initial  letters,  miniatures,  and  in 
general  any  ornamentation  of  manuscripts,  marks 
them  as  of  comparatively  late  date. 

Far  the  greater  number  of  the  manuscripts  be- 
fore us  are  written  in  the  cursive  hand,  many  of 
them  beautifully  illuminated  and  ornamented  with 
exquisite  miniatures  and  initials.  But  we  turn  at 
once  from  these  to  their  less  attractive  compan- 
ions, those  few  faded,  worn  parchments  with  the 
old  uncial  letters.  Notice  especially  those  three 
bound  in  square  book  form;  they  are  plain,  faded- 
looking  documents,  with  little  about  them  to 
attract  attention,  but  these  three  manuscripts  are 
among  the  greatest  treasures  the  Christian  Church 
possesses — the  oldest  copies  of  the  Bible  in  the 
world!  They  are  named  respectively  the  Vatican, 
Sinaitic,  and  Alexandrian  Manuscripts.  They 
have  been  largely  used  in  the  recent  Bible  Revision, 
but   they   were   not   any    of   them    accessible   to 


ANCIENT  MANUSCRIPTS.  13 

those  who  prepared  the  Authorized  Version  in 
1611. 

These  three  oldest  manuscripts  are  curiously 
enough  in  possession  of  the  three  great  branches 
of  the  Christian  Church.  The  Alexandrian 
(called  for  shortness  Codex  A)  belongs  to  Protes- 
tant England,  and  is  kept  in  the  manuscript  room 
of  the  British  Museum;  the  Vatican  {Codex  B) 
is  in  the  Vatican  Library  at  Rome;  and  the 
Sinaitic  (Codex  Aleph),  which  has  only  lately 
been  discovered,  is  one  of  the  treasures  of  the 
Greek  Church  at  St.  Petersburg. 

These  manuscripts  show  us  the  Bible  as  it  ex* 
isted  soon  after  the  apostolic  days.  There  has 
been  a  good  deal  of  discussion  about  their  age, 
which  need  not  be  entered  on  here ;  but  we  shall 
not  be  far  from  the  truth  if  we  say  roundly  that 
they  range  from  about  300  to  450  A.  D.  There- 
fore the  oldest  is  about  as  distant  in  time  from 
the  original  inspired  writings  as  the  Revised  is 
from  the  Authorized  Version.  All  the  Greek 
manuscripts  before  this  time  seem  to  have  perished 
in  the  terrible  persecutions  which  were  directed 
not  only  against  the  Christians  themselves,  but 
also  and  with  special  force  against  their  sacred 
writings. 


14  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 


The  Vatican  Manuscript.  Each  of  these 
three  manuscripts  has  its  history.  The  most 
ancient,  it  is  generally  agreed,  is  the  Vatican  manu- 
script, which  has  lain  at  least  four  or  five  hundred 
years  in  the  Vatican  Library  at  Rome.  One  is 
much  inclined  to  grudge  the  Roman  Church  the 
possession  of  this  our  most  valuable  manuscript; 
for  the  papal  authorities  have  been  very  jealous 
guardians,  and  most  persons  capable  of  examining 
it  aright  have  been  refused  access  to  it.  Dr.  Tre- 
gelles,  one  of  our  most  eminent  students  of  textual 
criticism,  made  an  attempt;  but  he  says  they 
would  not  let  him  open  the  volume  without  search- 
ing his  pockets,  and  depriving  him  of  pens  and  ink 
and  paper;  the  two  priests  told  off  to  watch  him 
would  try  to  distract  his  attention  if  he  seemed  too 
intent  on  any  passage,  and  if  he  studied  any  part 
of  it  too  long  they  would  snatch  away  the  book. 
However,  it  has  of  late  years  become  easily  acces- 
sible through  the  excellent  fac-similes  made  by 
order  of  Pope  Pius  IX.,  which  may  be  seen  in  our 
chief  public  libraries. 

The  manuscript  consists  of  about  700  leaves  of 
the  finest  vellum,  about  a  foot  square,  bound 
together  in  book  form.  It  is  not  quite  perfect, 
having  lost  Gen.  i.-xlvi.,  as  well  as  Psalms  cv.- 


ANCIENT  MANUSCRIPTS.  15 

cxxxvii.,  and  all  after  Heb.  ix.  14  of  the  New 
Testament.  The  original  writing  must  have  been 
beautifully  delicate  and  finely  formed.  There  are 
only  a  few  words  left  here  and  there  by  which  to 
judge  of  this;  for  from  one  end  to  the  other,  the 
whole  manuscript  has  been  travelled  over  by  the 
pen  of  some  meddlesome  scribe  of  about  the  tenth 
century.  Probably  he  was  afraid  of  the  precious 
writing  fading  out  if  it  were  not  thus  inked  over; 
but  if  so  his  fears  were  quite  groundless,  for  here 
are  some  of  the  words  which  he  passed  over  (con- 
sidering them  incorrect)  remaining  still  perfectly 
clear  and  legible  after  the  lapse  of  1500  years. 
Each  page  contains  three  colums,  and  the  writing 
is  in  capital  letters,  without  any  division  between 
the  words.  This  makes  it  less  easy  to  read,  but 
of  course  it  was  done  to  save  space  at  a  time  when 
writing  material  was  very  expensive. 

To  carry  this  saving  further,  words  are  written 
smaller  and  more  crowded  as  they  approach  the 
end  of  a  line,  and  for  the  same  reason  was  adopted 
the  plan  of  contracted  words,  which  has  often 
been  the  cause  of  manuscript  errors.  First,  they 
cut  off  the  final  M's  and  N's  at  the  end  of  a  word,, 
marking  the  omission  by  a  line  across  the  top,  as 
if  we  should  write  Londo  for  London ;  then  they 
proceeded  to  the  dropping  of  final  syllables,  and 
from  that  to  the  shortening  of  frequently  recur- 
ring words,  like  the  name  Jesus  or  God.      We 


16  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

might  fairly  represent  these  peculiarities  (which 
are  common  to  all  the  early  manuscripts)  by  writ- 
ing thus  in  English  (Titus  ii.  n,  12)  : 

FORTH  EG RACEOFSDBRing.ng 
SALVATION  HATH  APPEAR  ED 
TOALLMNTEACHINGUSTHATDEN 
YINGUNGODLINESSANDWOR 
LDLYLUSTWESHOULDLIVESOB 
ERLYANDGODLYINTHISPRESent 
EVIL  WORLD  LOOKING  FOR  THAT 

One  remark  more  before  we  lay  it  aside.  It 
will  be  noticed  that  in  the  Revised  New  Testament 
the  passage  at  the  end  of  St.  Mark's  Gospel  is 
printed  in  as  in  some  degree  doubtful,  with  a  note 
in  the  margin  that  "  the  two  oldest  Greek  manu- 
scripts omit  these  verses."  Now  this  and  the 
Sinaitic  are  the  two  manuscripts  referred  to,  and 
if  we  could  examine  the  manuscripts  we  should 
see  that  this  one,  while  omitting  the  passage, 
curiously  enough  leaves  a  blank  space  for  it  on 
the  page,  showing  that  the  scribe  knew  of  its 
existence,  but  was  undecided  whether  he  should 
put  it  in  or  not. 

II. 

The  Sinaitic  Manuscript.  There  is  no  need 
of  describing  this  celebrated  manuscript,  which  on 
the  whole  very  much  resembles  the  other ;  but  the 


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ANCIENT  MANUSCRIPTS.  17 

story  of  its  discovery  about  fifty  years  ago  is  full 
of  interest.  It  is  called  the  Sinaitic  Manuscript 
from  the  place  where  it  was  found  by  the  great 
German  scholar,  Dr.  Tischendorf.  His  whole  life 
was  given  up  to  the  discovery  and  study  of  ancient 
manuscripts  of  the  Bible,  and  he  travelled  all  over 
the  East,  searching  every  old  library  he  could  get 
into  for  the  purpose;  but  it  was  quite  unexpect- 
edly in  St.  Catharine's  Convent,  at  the  foot  of 
Mount  Sinai,  that  he  discovered  this  the  "  pearl 
of  all  his  researches,"  as  he  calls  it. 

In  visiting  the  library  of  the  convent  in  the 
month  of  May,  1844,  he  perceived  in  the  middle 
of  the  great  hall  a  basket  full  of  old  parchments, 
and  the  librarian  told  him  that  two  heaps  of  simi- 
lar old  documents  had  already  been  used  for  the 
fires.  What  was  his  surprise  to  find  in  the  basket 
a  number  of  sheets  of  a  copy  of  the  Septuagint 
(Greek)  Old  Testament,  the  most  ancient-looking 
manuscript  that  he  had  ever  seen.  The  authori- 
ties of  the  convent  allowed  him  to  take  away  about 
forty  sheets,  as  they  were  only  intended  for  the 
fire;  but  he  displayed  so  much  satisfaction  with 
his  gift  that  the  suspicion  of  the  monks  was 
aroused  as  to  the  value  of  the  manuscript,  and 
they  refused  to  give  him  any  more. 

He  returned  to  Germany,  and  with  his  precious 
sheets  made  a  great  sensation  in  the  literary 
world.     But  he  took  very  good  care  not  to  tell 


18  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

where  he  had  got  them,  as  he  still  had  hopes  oi 
securing  the  remainder;  and  he  soon  had  reason 
to  congratulate  himself  on  his  caution,  for  the 
English  Government  at  once  sent  out  a  scholar 
to  buy  up  any  valuable  Greek  manuscripts  he  could 
lay  hands  on,  and  poor  Dr.  Tischendorf  was  very 
uneasy  lest  the  Englishman  should  stumble  upon 
the  old  basket  on  Mount  Sinai.  You  may  judge 
of  his  relief  when  he  saw  the  Englishman's  report 
soon  after,  telling  of  his  failure;  "  for,"  said  he, 
"  after  the  visit  of  such  a  critic  as  Dr.  Tischen- 
dorf, I  could  not,  of  course,  expect  any  success." 
The  doctor  seems  quite  to  enjoy  the  telling  this 
part  of  the  story. 

He  tried  next,  by  means  of  an  influential  friend 
at  the  court  of  Egypt,  to  procure  the  rest  of  the 
manuscript,  but  without  success.  "  The  monks  of 
the  convent,"  wrote  his  friend,  "  have  since  your 
departure  learned  the  value  of  the  parchments, 
and  now  they  will  not  part  with  them  at  any 
price."  So  he  paid  another  visit  to  Mount  Sinai, 
but  could  only  find  one  sheet,  containing  eleven 
lines  of  the  book  of  Genesis,  which  showed  him 
that  the  manuscript  originally  contained  the  entire 
Old  Testament. 

To  shorten  the  story,  I  must  pass  over  fifteen 
years,  during  which  time  he  had  enlisted  the  sym- 
pathy of  the  Emperor  of  Russia,  and  in  1859  we 
iind  him  again  at  the  convent  with  a  commission 


ANCIENT  MANUSCRIPTS.  19 

from  the  Emperor  himself.  However,  he  found 
very  little  of  any  value,  and  had  made  his  arrange- 
ments to  leave  without  accomplishing  his  mission, 
when  a  quite  unexpected  event  brought  about  all 
that  he  had  wished  for.  The  very  evening  before 
he  was  to  leave  he  was  walking  in  the  grounds 
with  the  steward  of  the  convent,  and  as  they  re- 
turned the  monk  asked  him  into  his  cell  to  take 
some  refreshment.  Scarcely  had  they  entered  the 
cell,  when,  resuming  his  former  conversation,  the 
monk  said:  "  I  too  have  read  a  copy  of  that  Sep- 
tuagint."  And  so  saying  he  took  down  a  bulky 
bundle,  wrapped  in  red  cloth,  and  laid  it  on  the 
table.  Tischendorf  opened  the  parcel,  and  to  his 
great  surprise  found  not  only  those  very  frag- 
ments that  he  had  seen  fifteen  years  before,  but 
also  other  parts  of  the  Old  Testament,  the  New 
Testament  complete,  and  some  of  the  Apocryphal 
Books. 

Full  of  joy,  which  this  time  he  had  the  self- 
command  to  conceal,  he  asked  in  a  careless  way 
for  permission  to  look  over  it  in  his  bedroom. 
"  And  there  by  myself,"  he  says,  "  I  gave  way  to 
my  transports  of  joy.  I  knew  that  I  held  in  my 
hand  one  of  the  most  precious  Biblical  treasures  in 
existence,  a  document  whose  age  and  importance 
exceeded  that  of  any  I  had  ever  seen  after  twenty 
years'  study  of  the  subject." 

At  length,  through  the  Emperor's  influence,  he 


20  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

succeeded  in  obtaining  the  precious  manuscript, 
which  is  now  stored  up  in  the  Library  of  St. 
Petersburg,  the  greatest  treasure  which  the  East- 
ern Church  possesses.  Strange  that  after  all  the 
vicissitudes  of  fifteen  centuries  it  should  at  length 
be  restored  to  the  world  only  fifty  years  since ! 
It  is  now  easily  accessible  to  scholars  through  its 
fac-similes  in  all  our  great  libraries. 

Now  see  the  photographed  sheet  of  this  manu- 
script, at  page  — ,  shewing  the  close  of  St.  Mark's 
gospel  and  the  beginning  of  St.  Luke's.  We  have 
purposely  chosen  this  part  of  the  manuscript  for 
illustration.  We  have  already  (page  16)  men- 
tioned the  fact  that  the  Revised  Version  has 
printed  the  last  twelve  verses  of  St.  Mark  as 
in  some  degree  doubtful,  and  has  put  a  notice  in 
the  margin  that  "  the  two  oldest  Greek  Manu- 
scripts omit  these  verses."  This  and  the  Vatican 
Mauscript  are  the  two  referred  to.  The  evidence 
of  the  Vatican  manuscript,  however,  is  very  doubt- 
ful, for  though  it  omits  these  verses  it  leaves  the 
whole  following  column  blank  as  well  as  the  re- 
mainder of  the  column  on  which  v.  8  is  written. 
Nowhere  else  does  it  leave  such  a  blank  at  the  end 
of  a  book,  and  the  fact  indicates  that  the  scribe 
knewT  of  the  existence  of  the  passage  and  was 
uncertain  whether  to  put  it  in  or  not. 

The  evidence  of  the  Sinaitic,  however,  is  quite 
unhesitating.    St.  Mark's  gospel  evidently  ends  on 


ANCIENT  MANUSCRIPTS.  21 

this  page  as  photographed,  and  any  one  who  can 
read  Greek  can  see  in  this  photograph  that  it  ends 
with  the  words  ephobounto  gar,  "  for  they  were 
afraid  "  (v.  8). 

It  should  be  interesting  for  the  reader  to  be 
able  to  see  the  very  passage  on  which  the  Revisers 
depend  so  much.  This  is  not  the  place  to  discuss 
the  question  whether  the  Revisers  are  right  or  not. 
But  we  may  here  say  that  those  two  old  manu- 
scripts with  some  statements  of  Eusebius,  the 
great  church  historian,  are  the  only  important  evi- 
dence against  the  passage  in  question,  while  nearly 
all  the  rest  of  the  manuscripts  and  most  of  the 
Versions  bear  testimony  on  the  other  side. 

III. 

The  Alexandrian  Manuscript  (Codex  A). 
This  youngest  of  our  three  great  manuscripts  has 
special  interest  for  us,  being  in  the  custody  of 
England,  and  preserved  with  our  great  national 
treasures  in  the  British  Museum.  It  was  pre- 
sented to  Charles  I.  by  Cyril  Lucar.  Patriarch  of 
Constantinople,  A.  D.  1628,  and  therefore  arrived 
in  England  seventeen  years  too  late  to  be  of  use  in 
preparing  our  Authorized  Version.  The  Arabic 
inscription  on  the  first  sheet,  states  that  it  was 
written  "  by  the  hand  of  Thekla  the  Martyr." 

Only  ten  leaves  are  missing  from  the  Old  Tes- 


22  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

tament  part,  but  the  New  Testament  is  much  more 
defective,  having  lost  twenty-five  leaves  from  the 
beginning  of  St.  Matthew,  two  from  St.  John,  and 
three  from  Corinthians.  It  is  written  two  columns 
on  a  page,  the  Vatican  and  Sinaitic  having  respect- 
ively three  and  four.  The  original  can  be  seen  at 
the  British  Museum,  but  copies  which  exactly  rep- 
resent it  are,  like  those  of  the  other  two,  kept  in 
our  chief  public  libraries.  A  small  piece  of  it  has 
been  photographed  in  the  plate  of  the  five  Greek 
manuscripts.    See  plate  facing  page  10. 

IV. 

Here  is  the  Codex  of  Ephraem,  a  very  curious 
manuscript,  all  stained  and  soiled,  and  seemingly 
of  little  value,  as  it  is  written  in  quite  a  modern 
hand.  It  requires  a  closer  examination  to  notice 
under  that  straggling  handwriting  the  faint,  faded 
lines  of  old  uncial  letters.  This  is  what  is  called 
a  Palimpsest  or  Rescript  Manuscript,  i.  e.,  one  that 
has  had  its  original  contents  rubbed  out  to  make 
room  for  some  other  writing.  We  noticed  already 
contractions,  &c,  adopted  to  save  parchment  at  a 
time  when  it  was  very  expensive.  For  the  same 
purpose  scribes  sometimes  used  old  parchments 
that  had  been  written  on  before,  and,  by  carefully 
scraping  and  pumicing  out  the  old  letters,  made 
the  skin  tolerably  fit  for  use  again. 


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ANCIENT  MANUSCRIPTS.  23 

It  need  hardly  be  said  that  in  many  cases  the 
writing  thus  blotted  out  was  of  far  greater  value 
than  that  which  replaced  it,  and  especially  is  it  so 
in  this  case,  where  an  ancient  and  valuable  copy  of 
the  Scriptures  was  in  the  twelfth  century  coolly 
scrubbed  out  to  make  room  for  some  theological 
discourses  of  St.  Ephraem,  an  old  Syrian  Father. 

The  old  writing,  however,  had  not  been  so  thor- 
oughly rubbed  but  that  some  dim  traces  remained, 
which  drew  attention  to  the  manuscript  about  200 
years  since.  It  was  very  difficult  to  decipher  the 
old  hand  till  some  chemical  preparation  applied 
in  1834  revived  a  good  part  of  it,  though  it  very 
much  stained  and  defaced  the  vellum.  The  MS. 
was  then  found  to  contain  a  considerable  portion 
of  both  Old  and  New  Testaments,  and  it  is  con- 
sidered almost  if  not  quite  as  old  as  the  Alex- 
andrian. It  was  brought  into  France  by  Queen 
Catherine  de  Medici  of  evil  memory  and  is  now 
preserved  in  the  Royal  Library  at  Paris.  A  por- 
tion of  it  is  reproduced  on  the  opposite  page. 

V. 

There  is  just  one  more  uncial  manuscript  that 
deserves  mention.  This  is  the  Codex  Bezae  which 
is  in  the  University  Library  at  Cambridge.  It  was 
presented  to  the  University  in  1581,  by  Theodore 
Beza,  the  friend  of  Calvin,  with  a  statement  in 


24  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

his  own  handwriting  that  he  had  got  it  in  1562, 
from  the  monastery  of  St.  Irenaeus,  at  Lyons — 
(Lyons  was  sacked  in  that  year) .  It  is  somewhat 
later  in  date  than  the  other  great  uncials  already 
mentioned  and  is  written  in  Greek  and  Latin  on 
opposite  pages. 

It  is  in  many  ways  a  curious  and  interesting 
document.  It  shows  part  of  a  very  old  Greek  and 
a  very  old  Latin  Bible  which  do  not  always  exactly 
correspond.  It  shows  traces  of  the  work  of  sev- 
eral correctors,  some  of  them  very  ancient.  One 
can  see  how  the  original  scribe,  whenever  he  made 
a  slip,  washed  it  out  with  a  sponge,  and  how  he 
corrected  with  a  pen  nearly  empty  of  ink.  Later 
correctors  scraped  out  with  a  knife  what  seemed 
to  them  incorrect,  and  so  have  in  some  places 
spoiled  the  manuscript.  But  the  most  curious 
thing  is  the  daring  interpolations  in  the  text,  most 
of  which  are  entirely  unsupported  by  other  manu- 
scripts. Most  of  them  are  probably  worthless 
but  yet  it  is  not  improbable  that  some  of  them  may 
contain  lost  sayings  and  deeds  of  Our  Lord,  such 
as  St.  John  refers  to  in  chapter  xxi.  25,  "  there  are 
also  many  other  things  which  Jesus  did,  the  which 
if  they  should  be  written  every  one  I  suppose  that 
even  the  world  itself  would  not  contain  the  books 
that  should  be  written." 

Our  photograph  facing  page  25,  shows  a  very 
famous  one,  of  which  even  so  cautious  a  writer  as 


o 

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S  Eg-  z- 


S3 

w  •ff  J""*  f*»    w   tO 

3S  tfMzl 


%  ^  tu 


u* 


3  .<.:Jo  <u  b 


o-v^cr^;  pO  «> 


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O 

u 


! 


ANCIENT  MANUSCRIPTS.  25 

Dr.  Westcott  says  "  It  is  evident  that  it  rests  on 
some  real  incident."  It  occurs  in  St.  Luke  vi., 
between  the  fourth  and  fifth  verses.  It  is  in  the 
midst  of  the  Pharisee's  disputes  with  Our  Lord 
about  the  keeping  of  the  Sabbath.  For  conveni- 
ence sake  the  Latin  is  photographed  underneath 
the  Greek  insteaa  of  opposite  it.  The  reader  can 
easily  follow  the  Latin  on  the  photograph. 

quibus  non  licebat  manducare  si  non  solis  sacerdotibus 
which  it  is  not  lawful  to  eat  but  for  the  priests  alone. 

This  is  the  end  of  v.  4  and  then  follows  the 
interpolation : 

eodem  die  videns 

quendam  operantem  sabbato  et  dixit  illi 
Homo  siquidem  scis  quod  facis 
beatus  es.  si  autem  nescis  maledictus 
et  trabaricator  legis. 

The  same  day  seeing 

A  CERTAIN  MAN  WORKING  ON  THE   SABBATH  He  SAID  TO  HIM 
MAN  IF  INDEED  THOU  KNOWEST  WHAT  THOU  ART  DOING 
HAPPY  ART  THOU.      BUT  IF  THOU  KNOWEST  NOT  THOU  ART  AC- 
CURSED AND  A  TRANSGRESSOR  OF  THE  LAW. 


VI. 

All  that  we  have  examined  up  to  this  date  are 
of  uncial  type,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  is  a  mark 
of  their  antiquity.  Of  these  Uncials  we  have 
altogether  about  a  hundred. 

Of  the  more  modern  manuscripts,  in  the  cursive 


26  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE, 

or  running  hand,  there  are  more  than  1500  acces- 
sible to  scholars.  It  has  been  already  remarked 
that  it  is  quite  possible  for  a  comparatively  mod- 
ern manuscript  to  possess  a  high  value,  as,  for 
example,  suppose  a  scribe  of  the  fifteenth  century 
had  copied  in  running  hand  direct  from  the  "  Vati- 
can." For  this  and  other  reasons  some  of  our 
Cursives  are  very  important  evidence.  There  is 
one,  for  instance,  the  u  Queen  of  the  Cursives," 
as  it  is  called,  which,  for  its  valuable  readings, 
ranks  above  many  a  far  older  Uncial,  and  there 
are  four  others,  quite  modern  in  date  (twelfth  to 
fourteenth  centuries),  which  have  been  shown  by 
Professor  Abbott  and  the  late  Professor  Ferrar, 
of  Trinity  College,  Dublin,1  to  be  transcribed 
from  one  and  the  same  ancient  manuscript,  which 
was  probably  little  later  than  our  Alexandrian 
Codex. 

If  we  remember  that  ten  or  twelve  manuscripts, 
and  these  generally  modern,  are  all  we  have  for 
ascertaining  the  text  of  most  classical  authors,  it 
will  help  us  to  understand  what  an  enormous  mass 
of  evidence  there  is  available  for  the  purpose  of 
Scripture  revision. 

1 "  Collation  of  Four  Important  Manuscripts,"  by  W.  H.  Fer- 
rar, F.T.C.D.,  edited  by  T.  K.  Abbott,  F.T.C.D.    Dublin,  1877. 


ANCIENT  MANUSCRIPTS.  2? 


VII. 

The  Hebrew  manuscripts  of  the  Old  Testament 
need  occupy  little  time.  It  is  rather  startling  to 
learn  that  the  earliest  Hebrew  manuscripts  in  exist- 
ence date  no  earlier  than  about  the  tenth  century, 
A.  D.,  i.  e.,  about  the  time  of  William  the  Con- 
queror! This  is  a  grave  disadvantage  to  the 
textual  criticism  of  the  Old  Testament,  more  espe- 
cially since  the  Hebrew  alphabet  and  method  of 
writing  have  quite  changed  since  the  days  of  the 
prophets.  The  lack  of  early  manuscripts  here  is, 
however,  of  less  importance  than  would  appear  at 
first  sight.  As  far  as  we  can  learn  there  seems  to 
have  been  a  gradual  rough  sort  of  revision  of  the 
Palestine  manuscripts  continually  going  on  almost 
from  the  days  of  Ezra.  About  a  thousand  years 
ago  this  process  of  Hebrew  Manuscript  Revision 
came  to  an  end,  and  thus  at  that  early  date  the 
Hebrew  Old  Testament  was  made  as  nearly  cor- 
rect as  the  best  scholarship  of  the  Jewish  acad 
emies  could  make  it,  after  which  the  older  mani> 
scripts  gradually  disappeared.* 

The  existing  Hebrew  manuscripts,  then,  though 
not  very  old,  are  of  great  authority,  and  all  the 
more  so  owing  to  the  reverence  of  Jewish  scribes 

*  For  the  story  of  the  Hebrew  manuscripts,  see  the  author's 
H  The  Old  Documents  and  the  New  Bible." 


28  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

for  the  Word  of  God,  and  the  consequent  careful- 
ness of  their  transcription.  So  scrupulous  were 
they  that  even  if  a  manifest  error  were  in  the  copy 
they  transcribed  from,  they  would  not  meddle  with 
it  in  the  text,  but  would  write  in  the  margin  what 
the  true  reading  should  be;  if  they  found  one  let- 
ter larger  than  another,  or  a  word  running  beyond 
the  line,  or  any  other  mere  irregularity,  they 
would  copy  it  exactly  as  it  stood.  They  recorded 
how  many  verses  in  each  book,  and  the  middle 
verse  of  each,  and  how  many  verses  began  with 
particular  letters,  &c,  &c.  Such  exactness,  of 
course,  very  much  lessened  the  danger  of  erro- 
neous copying,  and  makes  our  Hebrew  Scriptures 
far  more  trustworthy  than  they  could  other- 
wise be. 

The  reason  then  that  there  are  so  few  changes 
in  the  Revised  Old  Testament,  as  compared  with 
the  New,  is  that  we  have  probably  less  need  and 
certainly  less  means  of  making  any  corrections.1 
In  fact,  the  chief  grounds  for  undertaking  Old 
Testament  revision  are  the  increased  knowledge 
of  Hebrew  and  of  textual  criticism,  together  with 
the  changes  through  natural  growth  of  the  English 
language  itself.  We  may  add  also,  for  their 
united  evidence  is  very  important,  the  more  thor- 

*It  is  no  reflection  on  the  Old  Testament  revisers  to  suggest 
also  that  they  could  scarecly  avoid  being  influenced  in  some 
degree  by  the  strong  feeling  exhibited  against  the  many  changes 
in  the  New  Testament  portion. 


ANCIENT   MANUSCRIPTS.  29 

ough  study  in  the  late  years  of  the  Septuagint  and 
the  Targums,  together  with  the  Vulgate  and  other 
ancient  versions,  to  be  described  in  the  next 
chapter. 


CHAPTER   III. 

ANCIENT  VERSIONS  AND  QUOTATIONS. 
I. 

I.  Various  Early  Versions.  II.  An  Ancient  "Revised  Bible." 
III.  How  Revision  was  regarded  fifteen  centuries  ago.  IV. 
Advantage  of  this  investigation.  V.  Quotations  from 
Ancient  Fathers. 

We  are  to  examine  now  our  second  pile — the 
Ancient  Versions,  i.  e.,  the  translations  of  the 
Bible  into  the  languages  of  early  Christendom 
long  before  the  oldest  of  our  present  Greek  manu- 
scripts were  written.  These  were  the  Bibles  used 
by  men,  some  of  whose  parents  might  easily  have 
seen  the  apostles  themselves,  and  therefore  it  is 
evident  that,  even  though  only  translations,  they 
must  often  be  of  great  value  in  determining  the 
original  text. 

There  are  the  old  Syriac  Scriptures,  which  were 
probably  in  use  about  fifty  years  after  the  New 
Testament  was  written,  a  Version  representing 
very  nearly  the  language  of  the  people  among 
whom  our  Lord  moved.  Those  discolored  parch- 
ments beside  them  are  Egyptian,  Ethiopic,  and 

30 


ANCIENT  VERSIONS  AND  QUOTATIONS.  31 

Armenian  Versions,  which  would  be  more  useful 
if  our  scholars  understood  these  languages  better; 
and  the  beautiful  silver-lettered  book,  with  its 
leaves  of  purple  parchment,  is  the  Version  of 
Ulfilas,  bishop  of  the  fierce  Gothic  tribes  about 
A.  D.  350.1  Here  are  the  "  Old  Latin,"  which, 
with  the  Syriac,  are  the  earliest  of  all  our  Ver- 
sions, and  the  most  valuable  for  the  purpose  of 
textual  criticism. 

But  what  is  this  Version  piled  up  in  such  enor- 
mous numbers,  far  exceeding  that  of  all  the  others 
put  together,  some  of  its  copies,  too,  ornamented 
with  exquisite  beauty? 


II. 


It  is  a  Version  which  in  these  days  of  the 
English  "  Revised  Version  "  should  possess  spe- 
cial interest  for  English  readers — St.  Jerome's 
Latin  Vulgate,  the  great  "  Revised  Version  "  of 
the  ancient  Western  Church.     This  is  its  story. 

Toward  the  end  of  the  fourth  century,  so  many 
errors  had  crept  into  the  "  Old  Latin  "  Versions 
that  the  Latin-speaking  churches  were  in  danger 
of  losing  the  pure  Scripture  of  the  apostolic  days. 
Just  at  this  crisis,  when  scholars  were  keenly  feel- 

1  Gibbons  says:  "He  prudently  suppressed  the  four  books  of 
Kings,  as  they  might  tend  to  irritate  the  fierce  spirit  of  the  bar- 
barians." 


32  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

ing  the  need  of  a  revision,  there  returned  to  Rome 
from  his  Bethlehem  hermitage  one  of  the  greatest 
scholars  and  holiest  men  of  the  day,  Eusebius 
Hieronymus  better  known  to  us  as  St.  Jerome, 
and  his  high  reputation  pointed  him  out  at  once 
as  the  man  to  undertake  this  important  task. 
Damasus,  bishop  of  Rome,  applied  to  him  for 
that  purpose,  and  Jerome  undertook  the  revision, 
though  he  was  deeply  sensible  of  the  prejudice 
which  his  work  would  arouse  among  those  who,  he 
says,  "  thought  that  ignorance  was  holiness."  His 
revision  of  the  New  Testament  was  completed  in 
385,  and  the  Old  Testament  he  afterward  trans- 
lated direct  from  the  original  Hebrew,  a  task 
which  probably  no  other  Christian  scholar  of  the 
time  would  have  been  capable  of.  We  shall  better 
understand  the  value  of  his  work  if  we  remember 
that  it  is  almost  as  old  as  the  earliest  of  our  pres- 
ent Greek  manuscripts,  and  since  Jerome  of  course 
used  the  oldest  manuscripts  to  be  had  in  his  day, 
his  authorities  would  probably  have  extended  back 
to  the  days  of  the  apostles. 

No  other  work  has  ever  had  such  an  influence 
on  the  history  of  the  Bible.  For  more  than  a 
thousand  years  it  was  the  parent  of  every  version 
of  the  Scriptures  *  in  Western  Europe,  and  even 
now,  when  the  Greek  and  Hebrew  manuscripts  are 
so  easily  accessible,  the  Rhemish  and  Douay  Tes- 

1  See  Diagram  facing  the  title-page. 


ANCIENT  VERSIONS  AND  QUOTATIONS.  33 

taments  are  translations  direct  from  the  Vulgate, 
and  its  influence  is  quite  perceptible  even  on  our 
own  Authorized  Version. 


III. 

How  do  you  think  the  good  people  of  the 
fourth  century  thanked  St.  Jerome  for  his  won- 
derful Bible?  Remembering  the  prejudice  which 
our  Revised  Version  excited  not  many  years  ago, 
it  is  interesting  to  recall  the  story  how  the  Re- 
vision of  the  old  monk  of  Bethlehem  was  received. 

It  was  called  revolutionary  and  heretical;  it 
was  pronounced  subversive  of  all  faith  in  Holy 
Scriptures;  it  was  said  to  be  an  impious  altering 
of  the  Inspired  Word  of  God.  In  fact,  for  centu- 
ries after,  everything  was  said  against  it  that  igno- 
rant bigotry  could  suggest  to  bring  it  into  dis- 
repute. The  Christians  of  that  day  had  their  old 
Bible,  which  they  venerated  highly  and  believed 
to  be  quite  correct,  and  probably  the  sound  of  its 
sentences  was  as  musical  in  their  ears,  who  could 
associate  them  with  the  holiest  moments  of  their 
lives,  as  that  of  our  beautiful  Authorized  Version 
is  in  ours. 

But  St.  Jerome  fought  his  battle,  perhaps  with 
more  temper  than  was  necessary,1  insisting  that  no 

1Thus,  writing  to  Marcella,  he  mentions  certain  poor  crea- 
tures (homunculos),  who  studiously  calumniate  him  for  his  cor- 


34  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

amount  of  sentiment  could  be  a  plea  for  a  faulty 
Bible,  and  that  the  most  venerable  translation 
must  give  way  if  found  to  disagree  with  the  origi- 
nal text. 

It  is  instructive  to  us  to  see  how  completely  the 
tide  had  turned  at  the  time  of  the  council  of  Trent, 
a  thousand  years  later.  Men  had  then  got  as 
attached  to  the  version  of  St.  Jerome  as  those  of 
the  fourth  century  had  been  to  its  predecessors. 
In  fact,  they  seem  almost  to  have  forgotten  that 
it  was  only  a  translation.  It  is  the  version  of  the 
Church,  they  said,  and  in  her  own  language; 
"  Why  should  it  yield  to  Greek  and  Hebrew  manu- 
scripts,  which  have  been  for  all  these  hundreds 
of  years  in  the  hands  of  Jewish  unbelievers  and 
Greek  schismatics?"  Well,  how  did  they  act? 
They  decreed  in  council  that  the  old  Vulgate 
should  be  regarded  as  the  standard  text,  and  to 
this  day,  with  all  the  progress  in  textual  research, 
the  Roman  Church  has  held  to  that  decision. 

An  amusing  exhibition  of  the  feeling  at  the 
time  is  a  passage  in  the  preface  to  the  Compluten- 

recting  words  in  the  Gospels.  "  I  could  afford  to  despise  them," 
he  says,  "  if  I  stood  upon  my  rights;  for  a  lyre  is  played  in  vain 
to  an  ass.  If  they  do  not  like  the  water  from  the  pure  fountain- 
head,  let  them  drink  of  the  muddy  streams;  "  and  again,  at  the 
close  of  the  letter,  he  returns  to  the  attack  of  those  "  bipedes 
asellos"  (two-legged  donkeys).  "Let  them  read,  'Rejoicing  in 
hope,  serving  the  time;'  let  us  read,  'Rejoicing  in  hope,  serving 
the  Lord;  '  let  them  consider  that  an  accusation  should  not  under 
any  circumstances  be  received  against  an  elder;  let  us  read, 
'  Against  an  elder  receive  not  an  accusation ;  but  before  two  or 
three  witnesses,'"  &c.   (Ep.  28}. 


ANCIENT  VERSIONS  AND  QUOTATIONS.  35 

sian  Polyglot  Bible,  where  the  Hebrew  and  the 
Greek  and  the  Latin  Vulgate  were  printed  in  par- 
allel columns  side  by  side,  the  venerable  old  Vul- 
gate being  in  the  middle,  which  the  editors  with 
grim  humor  compared  to  the  position  of  our  Lord 
between  the  two  thieves  at  the  crucifixion!  Of 
course  they  did  not  mean  any  slight  to  the  original 
Scriptures,  but  their  prejudice  led  them  to  suspect, 
or  to  fancy  they  had  a  right  to  suspect,  that  the 
Jews  and  Greeks  might  have  corrupted  the  manu- 
script copies. 

IV. 

This  glance  at  the  Ancient  Versions  will  be  suf- 
ficient for  our  purpose.  There  is  a  large  number 
now  accessible  to  scholars,  and  every  year  the 
study  of  them  is  increasing.  In  passing,  I  would 
point  to  this  part  of  our  subject  to  illustrate  the 
advantage  indirectly  resulting  from  the  investiga- 
tion of  questions  suggested  by  our  New  Revision. 
For  here  we  find  that  at  a  time  when  some  scepti- 
cal writers  would  have  us  believe  our  New  Testa- 
ment books  were  scarcely  written,  they  had  been 
translated  and  copied  and  re-copied  in  the  lan- 
guages of  early  Christendom;  commentaries  and 
harmonies  of  the  Gospels  had  been  written;  a  list 
of  the  books  had  been  prepared  (of  which  we 
have  still  a  portion  called  the  Muratorian  Frag- 


36  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

ment),  and  they  were  regarded  in  all  arguments 
between  Christians  of  the  time  as  referees  having 
divine  authority.  All  this  will  be  seen  still  more 
clearly  after  we  have  briefly  glanced  at  the  third 
source  of  information  open  to  revisers : 


V. 

The  Quotations  in  Early  Christian 
Writers.  The  quantity  of  these  writings  is  great, 
but  they  have  been  up  to  this  time  very  imperfectly 
examined.  In  spite  of  the  disadvantages  of  the 
quotations  being  often  fragmentary,  and  sometimes 
— as  will  be  seen  in  the  examples — made  loosely 
from  memory,  they  are  yet  of  great  value  in  deter- 
mining the  text  of  ancient  Bibles,  some  of  them 
going  back  to  the  days  of  the  original  New  Testa- 
ment writings.  Let  us  turn  over  a  few  of  them 
at  random,  taking  the  earliest  in  preference. 

(a.)  Here  is  the  Epistle  of  Barnabas,  which 
Doctor  Tischendorf  found  bound  up  with  his 
Sinaitic  Manuscript.  It  was  supposed,  though 
without  good  reason,  to  have  been  written  by  St. 
Paul's  companion;  but  certainly  it  is  not  much 
later  than  his  date.  Notice  these  expressions: 
"Beware,  therefore,  lest  it  come  upon  us  as  it  is 
written,  '  There  be  many  called  but  few  chosen;'  " 
again,   "  Give  to   him  that   asketh  thee."     And 


ANCIENT  VERSIONS  AND  QUOTATIONS.  37 

farther  on  he  says,  "  that  Christ  chose  as  His 
apostles  men  who  were  sinners,  because  He  came 
not  to  call  the  righteous,  but  sinners  to  repent- 
ance.9' 

(b.)  This  next  is  an  Epistle  by  Clement,  one  of 
the  early  bishops  of  Rome,  whom  ancient  writers 
unhesitatingly  assert  to  be  the  Clement  mentioned 
by  St.  Paul  in  Phil.  iv.  3.  This  letter  is  a  very 
valuable  one,  and  Irenaeus,  who  was  bishop  of 
Lyons  a  little  later,  says  of  it,  "  It  was  written  by 
Clement,  who  had  seen  the  blessed  apostles  and 
conversed  with  them,  who  had  the  preaching  of 
the  blessed  apostles  still  sounding  in  his  ears  and 
their  tradition  before  his  eyes."  The  epistle  was 
addressed  to  the  Church  of  Corinth,  and  Dio- 
nysius,  bishop  of  Corinth  about  170  A.  D.,  bears 
witness  "  that  it  had  been  wont  to  be  read  in  his 
church  from  ancient  times."  Here  are  a  few 
expressions  found  in  it:  "  Remembering  the 
words  of  the  Lord  Jesus  which  He  spake,  teaching 
us  gentleness  and  long-suffering;  for  He  said, 
4  Be  merciful,  that  ye  may  obtain  mercy;  forgive, 
that  it  may  be  forgiven  unto  you ;  as  ye  give  it 
shall  be  given  unto  you;  as  ye  judge  ye  shall  be 
judged;  with  what  measure  ye  mete,  it  shall  be 
measured  to  you.'  " 

And  again,  "  Remember  the  words  of  the  Lord 
Jesus,  how  He  said,  l  Woe  to  the  man  by  whom 
offences  come ;   it  were  better  for  him  that  he  had 


38  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

not  been  born  than  that  he  should  offend  one  of 
My  elect.  It  were  better  for  him  that  a  millstone 
should  be  tied  about  his  neck,  and  that  he  should 
be  drowned  in  the  depths  of  the  sea,  than  that  he 
should  offend  one  of  My  little  ones.'  " 

(c.)  Of  about  the  same  date  is  this  book,  the 
Shepherd  of  Hennas,  by  some  conjectured  to  be 
the  Hermas  of  Rom.  xvi.  14.  Here  we  have  ref- 
erence to  the  confessing  and  denying  of  Christ,  the 
parable  of  the  seed  sown,  the  expression,  "  He 
that  putteth  away  his  wife  and  marrieth  another, 
committeth  adultery/7  &c,  &c. 

(d.)  St.  Ignatius  became  bishop  of  Antioch 
about  forty  years  after  the  Ascension.  Here  are 
a  few  quotations  from  him:  "  Christ  was  bap- 
tized of  John,  that  all  righteousness  might  be  ful- 
filled in  Him."  "  Be  ye  wise  as  serpents  in  all 
things,  and  harmless  as  a  dove."  "  The  Spirit  is 
from  God,  for  it  knows  whence  it  cometh  and 
whither  it  goeth." 

(e.)  The  martyr  Polycarp  was  a  disciple  of  St. 
John,  and  is  thus  spoken  of  by  Irenaeus,  bishop  of 
Lyons,  who  in  his  youth  had  seen  him:  "  I  can 
tell  the  place  in  which  the  blessed  Polycarp  sat  and 
taught,  and  his  going  out  and  coming  in,  and  the 
manner  of  his  life,  and  how  he  related  his  conver- 
sations with  John  and  others  who  had  seen  the 
Lord,  all  which  Polycarp  related  agreeably  to  the 
Scriptures."     Of  this  old    martyr    we    have    an 


ANCIENT  VERSIONS  AND  QUOTATIONS.  39 

epistle  remaining,  and  though  it  is  a  very  short 
one,  it  contains  nearly  forty  clear  allusions  to  the 
New  Testament  books,  some  of  which  are  valu- 
able for  critical  purposes. 

(/.)  Those  old  parchments  lying  beside  Poly- 
carp's  Epistle,  are  the  "  Apologies, "  by  Justin 
Martyr,  and  his  "  Dialogue  with  Trypho,"  writ- 
ten about  the  year  150.  They  contain  very  inter- 
esting quotations,  though  unfortunately  they  seem 
often  quoted  from  memory,  and  therefore  lose 
much  of  their  value.  This  is  only  what  we  might 
expect.  "  When  we  think  it  strange, "  says  Dr. 
Salmon,1  "  that  an  ancient  father  of  Justin's  date 
should  not  quote  with  perfect  accuracy,  we  forget 
that  in  those  days,  when  manuscripts  were  scarce 
and  concordances  did  not  exist,  the  process  of 
finding  a  passage  in  a  manuscript  (written  pos- 
sibly with  no  spaces  between  the  words)  was  not 
performed  with  quite  as  much  ease  as  an  English 
clergyman  writing  his  sermon,  with  a  Bible  and 
Concordance  by  his  side,  can  turn  up  any  text  he 
wishes  to  refer  to,  and  yet  we  should  be  sorry  to 
vouch  for  the  verbal  accuracy  of  all  the  Scripture 
citations  we  hear  in  sermons  at  the  present  day." 

The  following  are  a  few  of  Justin's  quotations: 
"  I  gave  you  power  to  tread  on  serpents  and  scor- 
pions, and  venomous  beasts,  and  on  all  the  power 

*  "Introd.  New  Testament,"  p.  82. 


46  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

of  the  enemy."  "  Give  to  him  that  asketh,  and 
from  him  that  would  borrow  turn  not  away;  for 
if  ye  lend  to  them  of  whom  ye  hope  to  receive, 
what  new  thing  do  ye?  Even  the  publicans  do 
this.  Lay  not  up  for  yourselves  treasures  upon 
earth,  where  moth  and  rust  doth  corrupt,  and 
where  robbers  break  through ;  but  lay  up  for  your> 
selves  treasure  in  heaven,  where  neither  moth  nor 
rust  doth  corrupt."  For  what  is  a  man  profited  if 
he  shall  gain  the  whole  world  and  lose  his  own 
soul,  or  what  shall  a  man  give  in  exchange  for 
it?  "  And  again,  "  Be  ye  kind  and  merciful,  as 
your  Father  also  is  kind  and  merciful,  and  maketh 
His  sun  to  rise  on  sinners,  and  the  righteous  and 
the  wicked.  Take  no  thought  what  ye  shall  eat  or 
what  ye  shall  put  on;  are  ye  not  better  than  the 
birds  and  the  beasts?  and  God  feedeth  them. 
Take  no  thought,  therefore,  what  ye  shall  eat  or 
what  ye  shall  put  on,  for  your  heavenly  Father 
knoweth  that  ye  have  need  of  these  things.  But 
seek  ye  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  and  all  these 
things  shall  be  added  unto  you.  For  where  his 
treasure  is,  there  is  the  mind  of  man." 

On  account  of  the  double  object  in  view,  I  have 
selected  only  writers  of  the  second  century  to  illus- 
trate the  use  of  the  "  Quotations."  More  impor- 
tant for  purposes  of  criticism,  though  later  in  date, 
are  those  thick  manuscripts  further  on,  the  works 
of  Origen  and  Clement  of  Alexandria  early  in  the 


ANCIENT  VERSIONS  AND  QUOTATIONS.  41 

third  century,  and  in  the  fourth  Basil,  and  Augus- 
tine, and  Jerome  the  great  reviser,  and  many 
others,  whose  writings  in  large  quantity  are  avail- 
able for  criticism  of  the  Bible. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

EARLY    ENGLISH    VERSIONS. 

I.  The  Bible  Poet.  II.  Eadhelm  and  Egbert.  III.  The  Monk 
of  Yarrow.  IV.  A  Royal  Translator.  V.  Curious  Ex- 
pressions. 

Thus  we  have  seen  the  form  in  which  the  Scrip- 
tures existed  in  the  age  soon  after  that  of  the 
apostles,  and  found  the  threefold  line  of  evidence 
available  at  the  present  day  for  the  purpose  of 
Bible  Revision — (i.)  Greek  and  Hebrew  manu- 
scripts; (2.)  Ancient  Versions ;  and  (3.)  Quota- 
tions from  the  then  existing  Scriptures  in  the 
works  of  early  Christian  writers. 

And  now  that  we  are  to  trace  the  connection  of 
these  with  our  present  English  Bible,  it  becomes 
necessary  for  our  purpose  to  ask,  with  the  triple 
pile  of  parchments  before  us,  how  much  of  this 
material  was  accessible  a  thousand  years  ago, 
when  the  history  of  our  English  Bible  begins.  For 
it  is  evident  that  the  value  of  a  Scripture  version 
at  any  period  depends  on  the  value  of  the  old 
manuscript  material  accessible,  and  the  ability  of 
the  men  of  that  day  to  use  it. 

For  answer  we  take  from  the  centre  pile  those 
42 


EARLY  ENGLISH  VERSIONS.  43 

few  faded  worn-looking  copies,  portions  of  the 
Vulgate  and  older  Latin  versions,  and  place  them 
on  the  one  side.1  Those  are  the  Scriptures  which 
have  come  down  to  us  from  the  monasteries  of 
ancient  England,  and  as  we  compare  side  by  side 
this  handful  of  old  parchments  with  the  great 
mass  of  writings  from  which  it  has  been  drawn, 
we  are  comparing  together  the  sources  of  the 
earliest  and  latest  English  Versions — of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  Scriptures  of  a  thousand  years  since, 
and  the  Revised  Bible  which  is  in  our  hands  to- 
day.2 The  growth  of  the  English  Bible,  which 
took  place  in  the  meantime,  we  are  now  briefly  to 
trace.3 

1  There  were  also  many  works  of  the  early  Christian  Fathers, 
but  as  no  one  then  thought  of  using  them  for  purposes  of  textual 
criticism,  we  need  not  take  them  into  account. 

2  On  page  facing  the  title  I  have  tried  to  show  by  a  diagram 
the  gradual  increase  in  the  sources  of  our  English  Bible. 

3  Here  comes  a  temptation  to  an  Irish  writer.  Is  he  bound  to 
start  from  the  eighth  century,  when  the  earliest  known  transla- 
tions from  these  manuscripts  were  made  ?  May  he  not  go  back 
a  little  further,  and  let  rise  the  historic  memories  called  up  by 
those  manuscripts  themselves?  May  he  not  indulge  a  little  in 
the  "Irish  pride  of  better  days"  (the  only  source  of  pride  to 
poor  Ireland  in  the  present),  and  picture  the  noble  libraries  of 
Durrow  and  Armagh,  to  which  England  probably  owes  her 
earliest  Scriptures — when  St.  Columb  carried  his  manuscripts  to 
lonely  Iona  in  the  days  of  the  glory  of  the  Irish  Church,  when 
Ireland  was  the  light  of  the  Western  World,  and  Irishmen  went 
forth  from  the  "Island  of  Saints"  to  evangelize  the  heathen 
English? 

At  any  rate  it  seems  worth  spending  a  few  sentences  to  point 
out  that  not  from  Rome,  but  from  the  ancient  Irish  Church,  did 
England  chiefly  derive  her  Christianity,  and  probably  her 
earliest  Scriptures.  What  seems  best  remembered  in  connection 
with  the  question,  is  the  famous  scene  of  Gregory  in  the  slave- 
market  at  Rome,  admiring  the  beautiful  English  children — "  not 


44  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 


Though  England  had  no  complete  Bible  before 
Wycliffe's  days,  attempts  were  made  from  very 
early  times  to  present  the  Scriptures  in  the  lan- 
guage of  the  people,  and  the  story  of  these  ancient 
translations  from  the  Latin  manuscripts  before  us, 
forms  certainly  one  of  the  most  interesting  though 
not  most  important  portions  of  the  history  of  the 
English  Bible. 

It  is  now  1 200  years  since,  on  a  winter  night,  a 
poor  Saxon  cowherd  lay  asleep  in  a  stable  of  the 
famous  Abbey  of  Whitby.  Grieved  and  dispirited, 
he  had  come  in  from  the  feast  where  his  masters, 

Angles,  but  angels,"  said  he,  "  if  they  were  only  Christians  " — 
and  the  consequent  sending  of  the  Abbot  Augustine  to  England 
with  a  band  of  Christian  missionaries.  It  needs  to  be  pointed 
out  that,  according  to  our  best  historians,  this  Roman  mission 
soon  lost  its  early  ardor,  penetrating  little  further  than  Kent, 
where  it  originally  landed,  and  that  the  conversion  of  England, 
which  had  become  completely  pagan  under  Saxon  rule,  was  for 
the  most  part  left  to  the  missionaries  of  the  Irish  Church.  From 
St.  Columb's  monastery  at  Iona  the  Irish  preachers  came,  and 
travelled  over  the  greater  part  of  the  country.  Aidan,  their 
leader,  went  through  the  wilds  of  Yorkshire  and  Northumbria 
with  King  Oswald  as  his  interpreter,  a  former  student  of  Iona 
— while  Chad  and  Boisil  led  their  little  bands  of  missionaries 
through  the  centre  of  the  heathen  land,  returning  at  stated 
periods  to  Lindisfarne,  where  Aidan  had  fixed  his  episcopal  see. 
And  not  England  only  owes  a  debt  to  the  Irish  Church.  As  far 
off  as  the  Apennines  and  the  Alps  the  traces  of  her  enthusiastic 
missionaries  are  found,  and  "  for  a  time  it  seemed  as  if  the 
course  of  the  world's  history  was  to  be  changed,  as  if  the  older 
Celtic  race,  that  Roman  and  German  had  swept  before  them, 
had  turned  to  the  moral  conquest  of  their  conquerors,  as  if  Celtic 
and  not  Latin  Christianity  was  to  mould  the  destinies  of  the 
churches  of  the  West."     ( Green,  History  of  the  Enalish  People.) 


ttARLY  ENGLISH  VERSIONS.  45 

and  some  even  of  his  companions,  during  the 
amusements  of  the  night,  had  engaged  in  the  easy, 
alliterative  rhyming  of  those  simple  early  days. 
But  Caedmon  could  make  no  song,1  and  his  soul 
was  very  sad.  Suddenly,  as  he  lay,  it  seemed  to 
him  that  a  heavenly  glory  lighted  up  his  stable, 
and  in  the  midst  of  the  glory  One  appeared  who 
had  been  cradled  in  a  manger  six  hundred  years 
before. 

"  Sing,  Caedmon,"  He  said,  "  sing  some  song 
to  me." 

"  I  cannot  sing,"  w  is  the  sorrowful  reply,  "  for 
this  cause  it  is  that  I  came  hither." 

"  Yet,"  said  He  who  stood  before  him,  "  yet 
shalt  thou  sing  to  me." 

"  What  shall  I  sing?" 

"  The  beginning  of  created  things." 

And  as  he  listened,  a  divine  power  seemed  to 
come  on  him,  and  words  that  he  had  never  heard 
before  rose  up  before    his    mind.2     And  so  the 

1  Being  at  the  feast,  when  all  agreed  for  glee  sake  to  sing  in 
turn,  he  no  sooner  saw  the  harp  come  toward  him,  than  he  rose 
from  the  board  and  returned  homeward." — Account  of  Cadmon 
in  Bede's  EccL  Hist. 

2  The  words  that  came  to  the  sleeper's  mind  are  recorded  by 
King  Alfred.     They  begin: 

"  Now  must  we  praise 
the  grandeur  of  Heaven's  kingdom; 
the  Creator's  might, 
and  his  mind's  thought; 
glorious  father  of  men, 
The  Lord  the  Eternal, 
who  formed  the  beginning,"  &c,  &c 


46  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

vision  passed  away.  But  the  power  remained 
with  Caedmon,  and  in  the  morning  the  Saxon  cow- 
herd went  forth  from  the  cattle-stalls  transformed 
into  a  mighty  poet ! 

Hilda  the  abbess  heard  the  wondrous  tale,  and 
from  one  of  those  Latin  manuscripts  she  trans- 
lated to  him  a  story  of  the  Scriptures.  Next  day 
it  was  reproduced  in  a  beautiful  poem,  followed 
by  another  and  another  as  the  spirit  of  the  poet 
grew  powerful  within  him.  Entranced,  the  abbess 
and  the  brethren  heard,  and  they  acknowledged 
the  "  grace  that  had  been  conferred  on  him  by  the 
Lord."  They  bade  him  lay  aside  his  secular 
habit  and  enter  the  monastic  life,  and  from  that 
day  forward  the  Whitby  cowherd  devoted  himself 
with  enthusiasm  to  the  task  that  had  been  set  him 
in  the  vision.  "  Others  after  him  strove  to  com- 
pose religious  poems,  but  none  could  vie  with  him, 
for  he  learned  not  the  art  of  poetry  from  men, 
neither  of  men,  but  of  God."  In  earnest  passion- 
ate words,  which  yet  remain,  he  sung  for  the  sim- 
ple people  "  of  the  creation  of  the  world,  of  the 
origin  of  man,  and  of  all  the  history  of  Israel;  of 
the  Incarnation,  and  Passion,  and  Resurrection 
of  Christ,  and  His  Ascension;  of  the  terror  of 
future  judgment,  the  horror  of  hell  pains,  and  the 
joys  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven."  x 

1  Some  account  of  Caedmon  from  Bede's  Eccl.  Hist.,  translated 
into  Anglo-Saxon  by  King  Alfred." — Published  by  the  Society  of 
Antiauaries,  London. 


EARLY  ENGLISH  VERSIONS.  47 

Though  his  work  has  of  course  no  right  to  rank 
among  Bible  translations,  being  merely  an  attempt 
to  sing  for  the  ignorant  people  the  substance  of 
the  inspired  story,  yet  we  venture  to  give  a  brief 
extract,  translated  into  modern  English,  telling  of 
the  appearance  of  Christ  to  His  disciples  after 
the  resurrection: 

"  What  time  the  Lord  God 
from  death  arose 
so  strongly  was  no 
Satan  armed 

though  he  were  with  iron 
all  girt  round 
that  might  that  great 
force  resist; 
for  he  went  forth 
the  Lord  of  angels, 
in  the  strong  city, 
and  bade  fetch 
angels  all  bright 
and  even  bade  say 
to  Simon  Peter 
that  he  might  on  Galilee 
behold  God 
eternal  and  firm, 
as  he  ere  did. 

Then  as  I  understand,  went 
the  disciples  together 
all  to  Galilee, 
inspired  by  the  Spirit, 
The  holy  Son  of  God, 
whom  they  saw 


48  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

were  the  Lord's  son. 

Then  over  against  the  disciples  stood 

the  Lord  Eternal, 

God  in  Galilee, 

so  that  the  disciples 

thither  all  ran 

Where  the  eternal  was, 

fell  on  the  earth, 

and  at  his  feet  bowed, 

thanking  the  Lord 

that  thus  it  befell 

that  they  should  behold 

the  creator  of  angels. 

Then  forthwith  spake 

Simon  Peter  and  said, 

Art  thou  thus,  Lord, 

with  power  gifted? 

We  saw  thee 

at  one  time  when 

they  laid  thee 

in  loathsome  bondage, 

the  heathen  with  their  hands. 

That  they  may  rue 

when  they  their  end 

shall  behold  hereafter. 

He  on  the  tree  ascended 
and  shed  his  blood, 
God  on  the  cross 
through  his  Spirit's  power. 
Wherefore  we  should 
at  all  times 

give  to  the  Lord  thanks 
in  deeds  and  works 


EARLY  ENGLISH  VERSIONS.  49 

for  that  he  us  from  thraldom 

led  home 

up  to  Heaven, 

where  we  may  share 

the  greatness  of  God."  * 

II. 

About  the  time  of  Caedmon's  death,  early  in  the 
eighth  century,  the  learned  Eadhelm,  bishop  of 
Sherborne,  was  working  in  Glastonbury  Abbey 
translating  the  Psalms  of  David  into  Anglo-Saxon, 
and  at  his  request,  it  is  said,  Egbert,  bishop  of 
Holy  Island,  completed  about  the  same  time  a 
version  of  the  Gospels,  of  which  a  copy  is  still 
preserved  in  the  British  Museum. 

III. 

But  the  names  of  Eadhelm  and  Egbert  are  over- 
shadowed by  that  of  a  contemporary  far  greater 
than  either. 

It  was  a  calm  peaceful  evening  in  the  spring  of 
735 — the  evening  of  Ascension  Day — and  in  his 
quiet  cell  in  the  monastery  of  Jarrow  an  aged 
monk  lay  dying.  With  labored  utterance  he  tried 
to  dictate  to  his  scribe,  while  a  group  of  fair- 
haired  Saxon  youths  stood  sorrowfully  by,  with 
tears  beseeching  their  "  dear  master  "  to  rest. 

1  Thorpe's  "  Caedmon's  Paraphrase." — Society  of  Antiquaries, 
London,  183a. 


50  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

That  dying  monk  was  the  most  famous  scholar 
of  his  day  in  Western  Europe.  Through  him 
Jarrow-on-the-Tyne  had  become  the  great  centre 
of  literature  and  science,  hundreds  of  eager  stu- 
dents crowding  yearly  to  its  halls  to  learn  of  the 
famous  Basda.  He  was  deeply  versed  in  the  liter- 
ature of  Greece  and  Rome — he  had  written  on 
medicine,  and  astronomy,  and  rhetoric,  and  most 
of  the  other  known  sciences  of  the  time — his 
"  Ecclesiastical  History  "  is  still  the  chief  source 
of  our  knowledge  of  ancient  England; — but  none 
of  his  studies  were  to  him  equal  to  the  study  of 
religion,  none  of  his  books  of  the  same  importance 
as  his  commentaries  and  sermons  on  Scripture. 
Even  then  as  he  lay  on  his  deathbed  he  was  feebly 
dictating  to  his  scribe  a  translation  of  St.  John's 
Gospel.  "  I  don't  want  my  boys  to  read  a  lie," 
he  said,  "  or  to  work  to  no  purpose  after  I  am 
gone." 

And  those  "  boys  "  seem  to  have  dearly  loved 
the  gentle  old  man.  An  epistle  has  come  down  to 
us  from  his  disciple  Cuthbert  to  a  "  fellow 
reader  "  Cuthwin,  telling  of  what  had  happened 
this  Ascension  Day.  "  Our  father  and  master, 
whom  God  loved,"  he  says,  "  had  translated  the 
Gospel  of  St.  John  as  far  as  '  what  are  these 
among  so  many/  when  the  day  came  before  Our 
Lord's  Ascension. 

"  He  began  then  to  suffer  much  in  his  breath, 


EARLY  ENGLISH  VERSIONS.  51 

and  a  swelling  came  in  his  feet,  but  he  went  on  dic- 
tating to  his  scribe.  *  Go  on  quickly,'  he  said,  '  I 
know  not  how  long  I  shall  hold  out,  or  how  soon 
my  Master  will  call  me  hence.' 

"  All  night  long  he  lay  awake  in  thanksgiving, 
and  when  the  Ascension  Day  dawned,  he  com- 
manded us  to  write  with  all  speed  what  he  had 
begun." 

Thus  the  letter  goes  on  affectionately,  describ- 
ing the  working  and  resting  right  through  the  day 
till  the  evening  came,  and  then,  with  the  setting  sun 
gilding  the  windows  of  his  cell,  the  old  man  lay 
feebly  dictating  the  closing  words. 

"  There  remains  but  one  chapter,  master,"  said 
the  anxious  scribe,  "  but  it  seems  very  hard  for 
you  to  speak." 

"  Nay,  it  is  easy,"  Bede  replied;  "  take  up  thy 
pen  and  write  quickly." 

Amid  blinding  tears  the  young  scribe  wrote  on. 
"  And  now,  father,"  said  he,  as  he  eagerly  caught 
the  last  words  from  his  quivering  lips,  "  only  one 
sentence  remains."     Bede  dictated  it. 

"  It  is  finished,  master!  "  cried  the  youth,  rais- 
ing his  head  as  the  last  word  was  written. 

"  Ay,  it  is  finished!  "  echoed  the  dying  saint; 
"  lift  me  up,  place  me  at  that  window  of  my  cell 
where  I  have  so  often  prayed  to  God.  Now  glory 
be  to  the  Father,  and  to  the  Son,  and  to  the  Holy 


52  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

Ghost!  "  and  with  these  words  the  beautiful  spirit 
passed  to  the  presence  of  the  Eternal  Trinity. 

IV. 

Our  next  translator  is  no  less  a  person  than 
King  Alfred  the  Great,  whose  patriotic  wish  has 
been  so  often  quoted,  "  that  all  the  freeborn  youth 
of  his  kingdom  should  employ  themselves  on  noth- 
ing till  they  could  first  read  well  the  English 
Scripture."  * 

A  striking  monument  of  his  zeal  for  the  Bible 
remains  in  the  beginning  of  his  Laws  of  England. 
The  document  is  headed  "  Alfred's  Dooms,"  and 
begins  thus:  "  The  dooms  which  the  Almighty 
Himself  spake  to  Moses,  and  gave  him  to  keep, 
and  after  our  Saviour  Christ  came  to  earth,  He 
said  He  came  not  to  break  or  forbid,  but  to  keep 
them."  And  then  follow  the  Ten  Commandments, 
in  the  forcible  simple  Anglo-Saxon  terms,  the  first 
part  of  the  ancient  laws  of  England: 


Drihten  waes  sprecende  thaes 
word  to  Moyse  and  thus 
cwaerh : 

Ic  earn  Drihten  thy  God.  Ic 
the  sit  gelaedde  of  Aegypta 
londe  and  of  heora  theowdome. 


The  Lord  was  speaking  these 
words  to  Moses  and  thus  said: 

I  am  the  Lord  thy  God.  I 
led  thee  out  of  the  land  of 
Egypt  and  its  thralldom. 


1  At  least  so  it  is  quoted,  though  the  last  words  "  Englisc 
ge-writ  araedan "  quite  as  probably  mean  "  to  read  English 
writing"    See  Eadie's  Bibl.  Hist.,  i.  13. 


EARLY  ENGLISH  VERSIONS. 


53 


Ne  lufa  thu  othre  fremde 
godas  ofer  me. 

»         *         *         #         * 

Ara  thinum  f aeder  and  thinre 
meder  tha  the  Drihten  sealde 
the,  that  thu  sy  thy  leng  lib- 
bende  on  eorthan. 

Ne  slea  thu. 

Ne  stala  thu. 

Ne  lige  thu  dearnunga. 

Ne  saege  thu  lease  gewitnesse 
with  thinum  nehstan. 

Ne  wilna  thu  thines  nehstan 
yifes  mid  unrihte. 

Ne  wyrc  thu  the  gyldene 
godas  ohthe  seolfrene. 


Love  thou  not  other  strange 

gods  over  me, 

*        *        *        *        * 

Honor  thy  father  and  thy 
mother  whom  the  Lord  gave 
thee,  that  thou  be  long  living 
on  earth. 

Slay  not  thou. 

Steal  not  thou. 

Commit  not  thou  adultery. 

Say  not  thou  false  vuitnesA 
against  thy  neighbor. 

Desire  not  thou  thy  neigh- 
bor's inheritance  with  unright. 

Work  not  thou  the  golden 
gods  or  silvern. 


Here  is  the  Lord's  Prayer  of  King  Alfred's 
time,  and  side  by  side  with  it  the  Lord's  Prayer 
in  early  English  three  hundred  years  afterward: 


Uren  Fader  dhis  art  in 
heofnas, 

Sic  gehalged  dhin  noma, 

To  cymedh  dhin  ric, 

Sic  dhin  uuilla  sue  is  in 
heofnas  and  in  eardho, 

Vren  hlaf  ofer  uuirthe  sel  vs 
to   daeg, 

And  forgef  us  scylda  urna, 

Sue  uue  forgefan  sculdgun 
vrum, 

And  no  inleadh  vndk  in  cost- 
nung  al  gefrig  vrich  from  ifle. 


Fader  oure  that  art  in  heve, 

l-halgeed  be  thi  nome, 
I-cume  thi  kinereiche, 
Y-worthe  thi  vuylle  also  is 

in  hevene  so  be  on  erthe, 
Our    iche-days-bred    gif    us 

to-day, 

And  for  gif  us  oure  gultes, 
Also  vue  for  gif  et  oure  gul- 

tare, 

And  ne  led  ovjs  nowth  into 

fondyngge,  Auth  ales   ows   of 

harme, 
So  be  hit. 


54  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

Alfred  also  engaged  in  a  translation  of  the 
Psalms,  which,  with  the  Gospels,  seemed  the 
favorite  Scriptures  of  the  people;  but,  unlike  his 
great  predecessor,  Bede,  he  died  before  his  task 
was  finished. 


V. 

Archbishop  Aelfric,  and  a  few  other  translat- 
ors, appear  about  the  close  of  the  tenth  century, 
but  there  is  no  need  of  describing  their  works  in 
detail.  As  far  as  we  can  judge  from  the  existing 
manuscripts,  most  of  these  early  Bible  translations 
were  intended  for  reading  in  the  churches  to  the 
people,  and  their  simple  expressive  terms  made 
them  very  easily  understood.  For  example,  a  cen- 
turion was  a  "  hundred-man,"  a  disciple  a  "  leorn- 
ing  cnight,"  or  "  learning  youth;  "  "  the  man  with 
the  dropsy,"  is  translated  as  "  the  water-seoc- 
man,"  the  Sabbath  as  "  the  reste  daeg  "  (rest 
day),  and  the  woman  who  put  her  mites  in  the 
treasury,  is  said  to  have  cast  them  into  the  "  gold- 
hoard."  x 

On  the  opposite  page  is  a  photograph  of  Arch- 
bishop Aelfric's  Anglo-Saxon  Bible.  It  is  taken 
from  a  beautiful  copy  in  the  Cottonian  Library 
It  contains  many  curious  miniatures  as  for  exampk 
the  Creation  of  Eve  who  is  represented  as  being 

1  See  Forshall  and  Madden's  Anglo-Saxon  Gospels. 


EARLY  ENGLISH  VERSIONS.  55 

drawn  out  of  an  opening  amongst  Adam's  ribs. 
The  miniature  which  we  reproduce  represents  the 
expulsion  of  Adam  and  Eve  from  Paradise  and 
their  being  taught  by  an  angel  to  till  the  ground. 
Below  it  is  photographed  a  verse  from  a  later  page 
(Gen.  iv.  9,  10) .  It  is  interesting  to  notice  in  this 
passage  that  almost  every  word  of  its  Anglo- 
Saxon  is  still  represented  in  our  present  English : 

Tha    cwaeth  Drihten  to  Caine  hwaer  is  Abel 
Then  quoth       the  Lord   to     Cain     where     is     Abel 

thin  brothor:  tha  andswarode  he  &  cwaeth 
thy       brother:         then        answered  he    £sf       quoth 

is  nat,  segst  thu  sceolde  is  minne  brothor  &c. 

/  know  not,   sayest   thou   should    I       my       brother     &c. 

The  following  is  a  New  Testament  specimen 
from  Forshall  and  Madden's  Anglo-Saxon 
Gospels. 

St.  Matt.  vii.  26,  27. 

And  aelc  thaera  the  gehyrath  thas  mine  word 
And    each  of  them  that  ge-heareth  these  mine    words 

and  tha  ne  wyrcth  se    bith     gelic      thon 

and    that  not  work eth  (them)       he  beeth    ge-like       that 

dysigan  man  tha  getimbrode  hys  hus  ofer 

foolish  (dizzy)     man    that        timbered       his    house  over 


56  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

sand-ceosel.    Tha  rinde  hyt  and  thaer  comun  flod 
sand-graveL        Then  rained    it    and    there      come    flood 

and  bleowun  windas  and  ahruron  on   thon  hus, 
and         blew  winds     and      rushed      on     that  house, 

and  that  hus  feoll  and  hys  hryre  waees  myceh 
and    that   house   fell     and    his     fall         was      mickle. 


CHAPTER  V. 

wycliffe's  version. 

I.  Growth  of  the  Language.  II.  The  Parish  Priest  of  Lutter- 
worth. III.  The  State  of  the  Church.  IV.  The  Bible  for 
the  people.  V.  Wycliffe  as  a  Reformer.  VI.  His  Death. 
VII.  His  Bible.     VIII.  Results  of  his  Work. 

We  pass  over  six  hundred  silent  years. 

After  the  early  Anglo-Saxon  versions  comes  a 
long  pause  in  the  history  of  Bible  translation. 
Amid  the  disturbance  resulting  from  the  Danish 
invasion  there  was  little  time  for  thinking  of  trans- 
lations and  manuscripts;  and  before  the  land  had 
fully  regained  its  quiet  the  fatal  battle  of  Hastings 
had  been  fought,  and  England  lay  helpless  at  the 
feet  of  the  Normans.  The  higher  Saxon  clergy 
were  replaced  by  the  priests  of  Normandy,  who 
had  little  sympathy  with  the  people  over  whom 
they  were  placed,  and  the  Saxon  manuscripts  were 
contemptuously  flung  aside  as  relics  of  a  rude  bar- 
barism. The  contempt  shown  to  the  language  of 
the  defeated  race  quite  destroyed  the  impulse  to 
English  translation,  and  the  Norman  clergy  had 
no  sympathy  with  the  desire  for    spreading  the 

57 


58  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

knowledge  of  the  Scriptures  among  the  people,  so 
that  for  centuries  those  Scriptures  remained  in 
England  a  "  spring  shut  up,  a  fountain  sealed." 

Yet  this  time  must  not  be  considered  altogether 
lost,  for  during  those  centuries  England  was 
becoming  fitted  for  an  English  Bible.  The  future 
language  of  the  nation  was  being  formed;  the 
Saxon  and  Norman  French  were  struggling  side 
by  side;  gradually  the  old  Saxon  grew  unintelli- 
gible to  the  people ;  gradually  the  French  became 
a  foreign  tongue,  and  with  the  fusion  of  the  two 
races  a  language  grew  up  which  was  the  language 
of  United  England.1 

1 "  In  tracing  the  history  of  the  change  from  Anglo-Saxon  to 
modern  English  it  is  impossible  to  assign  any  precise  dates  by 
which  we  can  mark  the  origin  of  this  change,  or  the  principal 
epochs  of  its  progress,  or  its  completion.  This  necessarily  results 
from  the  very  gradual  nature  of  the  change  itself;  we  might  as 
well  ask  at  what  moment  a  child  becomes  a  youth,  or  a  youth  a 
man;  or  when  the  plant  becomes  a  tree.  So  gradual  was  the 
change,  that,  to  adopt  the  language  of  Hallam,  '  When  we  com- 
pare the  earliest  English  of  the  thirteenth  century  with  the 
Anglo-Saxon  of  the  twelfth,  it  seems  hard  to  pronounce  why  it 
should  pass  for  a  separate  language  rather  than  a  modification 
and  simplification  of  the  former.'  Still,  for  the  sake  of  conveni- 
ence, we  may  fix  on  certain  dates  somewhere  about  which  the 
change  commenced  or  was  effected.  About  1150,  or  a  little  less 
than  a  century  after  the  Conquest,  may  be  dated  the  decline  of 
pure  Saxon;  about  1250,  or  a  century  later,  the  commencement 
of  English.  During  the  intervening  century  the  language  has 
been  called  by  many  of  our  writers  semi-Saxon." — H.  Rogers  in 
Edinburgh  Review,  Oct.,  1850. 

It  was  toward  the  end  of  the  fourteenth  century  that  English 
began  to  be  the  language  of  literature.  "  Sir  John  Mandeville's 
Travels,"  one  of  the  earliest  English  books,  appeared  in  1356, 
and  Chaucer  wrote  toward  the  close  of  the  century;  therefore 
WyclinVs  Bible  in  1383  was  about  as  early  as  a  version  could 
be  which  was  to  retain  its  place  among  the  English  people. 


WYCLIFFE'S  VERSION.  59 


II. 


Passing,  then,  from  the  quiet  deathbeds  oi 
Alfred  and  Bede,  we  transfer  ourselves  to  the 
great  hall  of  the  Blackfriars'  Monastery,  London, 
on  a  day  in  May,  1378,  amid  purple  robes  and 
gowns  of  satin  and  damask,  amid  monks  and 
abbots,  and  bishops  and  doctors  of  the  Church, 
assembled  for  the  trial  of  John  Wycliffe,  the 
parish  priest  of  Lutterworth. 

The  great  hall,  crowded  to  its  heavy  oak^n 
doors,  witnesses  to  the  interest  that  is  centred  in 
the  trial,  and  all  eyes  are  fixed  on  the  pale  stern 
old  man  who  stands  before  the  dais  silently  facing 
his  judges.  He  is  quite  alone,  and  his  thoughts 
go  back,  with  some  bitterness,  to  his  previous  trial, 
when  the  people  crowded  the  doors  shouting  for 
their  favourite,  and  John  of  Gaunt  and  the  Lord 
Marshal  of  England  were  standing  by  his  side. 
He  has  learned  since  then  not  to  put  his  trust  in 
princes.  The  power  of  his  enemies  has  grown 
rapidly,  even  the  young  King  has  been  won  over 
to  their  cause,  and  patrons  and  friends  have  drawn 
back  from  the  side  of  him  whom  the  Church  has 
resolved  to  crush. 

The  judges  have  taken  their  seats,  and  the 
accused  stands  awaiting  the  charges  to  be  read, 
when  suddenly  there  is  a  quick  cry  of  terror.     A 


60  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

strange  rumbling  sound  fills  the  air,  and  the  walls 
of  the  judgment-hall  are  trembling  to  their  base 
— the  monastery  and  the  city  of  London  are  being 
shaken  by  an  earthquake !  Friar  and  prelate  grow 
pale  with  superstitious  awe.  Twice  already  has 
the  arraignment  of  Wycliffe  been  strangely  inter- 
rupted. Are  the  elements  in  league  with  this 
troubler  of  the  Church?  Shall  they  give  up  the 
trial? 

"  No!  "  thunders  Archbishop  Courtenay,  rising 
in  his  place,  "  We  will  not  give  up  the  trial.  This 
earthquake  but  portends  the  purging  of  the  king- 
dom; for  as  there  are  in  the  bowels  of  the  earth 
noxious  vapors  which  only  by  a  violent  earthquake 
can  be  purged  away,  so  are  there  evils  brought 
by  such  men  upon  this  land  which  only  by  a  very 
earthquake  can  ever  be  removed.  Let  the  trial  go 
forward!  " 

III. 

We  pause  in  this  place  to  try  to  understand  the 
position  of  the  Church  of  England  at  this  time, 
and  the  fact  that  we  have  here  under  censure  by 
that  Church  the  man  who  was  giving  to  England 
her  first  complete  Bible. 

It  was  a  critical  time  in  the  history  of  the 
English  Church.  We  have  evidence  of  much  sim- 
ple godliness,  of  real  religion,  and  of  many  faith- 


WYCLIFFE'S  VERSION.  61 

ful  priests  all  over  the  land  quietly  bringing  the 
blessings  of  religion  to  their  flocks.  But  it  was  in 
the  main  an  age  of  ignorance  and  superstition  and 
of  worldly  ambition  in  the  high  places  of  the 
Church.  Chaucer  and  other  writers  of  the  time 
give  us  graphic  pictures  of  its  mingled  good  and 
evil.  The  clergy  were  in  the  main  poorly  edu- 
cated. The  Friars  who  at  their  first  coming  had 
been  such  a  power  for  good  with  their  ideals  of 
holiness  and  voluntary  poverty,  and  the  popular 
enthusiasm  roused  by  their  preaching,  had  now  in 
the  course  of  time  become  degraded  into  idle 
vagrants  and  imposters  extorting  money  by  the 
selling  of  pardons  and  relics,  "  as  if,"  to  quote  the 
words  of  an  old  writer,  "  God  had  given  His  sheep 
not  to  be  pastured  but  to  be  shaven  and  shorn." 
The  Roman  See,  too,  was  encroaching  more  and 
more  on  the  liberties  of  the  Church  of  England 
and  rousing  the  ancient  spirit  of  the  Barons'  Char- 
ter at  Runnymede,  "  Ecclesia  Anglicana  libera 
sit."  "  The  Church  of  England  must  be  free." 
A  hostile  spirit  was  growing  in  the  nation  a  spirit 
which  might  easily  turn  from  hostility  to  the 
Papacy  to  hostility  toward  religion  itself. 

The  times  were  critical  and  those  who  could 
discern  the  signs  of  the  times  must  have  seen  now 
that  things  could  not  go  on  much  longer  as  they 
were.  For  education  was  rapidly  increasing,  sev- 
eral new  colleges  having  been  founded  in  Oxford 


62  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

during  Wycliffe's  lifetime.  A  strong  spirit  of  inde- 
pendence, too,  was  rising  among  the  people — 
already  Edward  III.  and  his  Parliament  had  in- 
dignantly refused  the  Pope's  demand  for  the 
annual  tribute  to  be  sent  to  Rome.  It  was  evident 
that  a  crisis  was  near.  And,  as  if  to  hasten  the 
crisis,  the  famous  schism  of  the  Papacy  had  placed 
two  Popes  at  the  head  of  the  Church,  and  all 
Christendom  was  scandalized  by  the  sight  of  the 
rival  "  vicars  of  Jesus  Christ  "  anathematizing 
each  other  from  Rome  and  Avignon,  raising 
armies  and  slaughtering  helpless  women  and  chil- 
dren, each  for  the  aggrandizement  of  himself. 

IV. 

Chief  amongst  the  leaders  of  the  patriotic  agi- 
tation against  Roman  aggression  was  John  Wyc- 
liffe.  He  was  a  famous  scholar  and  leader  of 
thought  in  university  circles  as  well  as  amongst 
the  populace,  and  a  beautiful  life  of  devotion  and 
self-sacrifice  consecrated  his  great  learning.  He 
had  a  powerful  following,  John  of  Gaunt,  the 
Duke  of  Lancaster,  being  one  of  his  staunch  sup- 
porters. And  he  used  his  great  influence  not  only 
against  external  aggressions  from  the  Papacy  but 
also  against  internal  corruptions  in  the  Church  of 
England  itself.  Looking  back  now  on  certain 
periods  of  his  career  one  is  inclined  to  wonder  that 


WYCLIFFE'S  VERSION.  63 

the  English  Reformation  of  200  years  later  did 
not  come  in  Wycliffe's  day. 

His  sermons  were  a  great  power.  His  vigorous 
pamphlets  were  sent  in  all  directions.  He  had 
organized  his  band  of  "  poor  priests,"  somewhat 
on  the  model  of  the  original  friars,  to  spread  the 
teaching  of  the  Gospel  through  the  land.  But 
immeasurably  above  all  other  influences  was  the 
splendid  project  of  giving  to  his  Church  and 
nation  the  first  complete  Bible  in  the  language  of 
the  people.  Wycliffe  was  a  most  devoted  student 
of  Scripture.  It  was  his  constant  companion,  his 
absolute  standard  of  appeal,  and  he  shows  the 
most  intimate  acquaintance  with  its  text.  In  one 
single  volume  he  has  seven  hundred  quotations 
from  Scripture,  and  it  was  his  contemporaries' 
recognition  of  his  reverence  for  it  that  gained  for 
him  the  title  of  the  Evangelical  Doctor.  Natu- 
rally such  a  man  would  feel  that  at  such  a  time  the 
firmest  charter  of  the  Church  would  be  the  open 
Bible  in  her  children's  hands;  the  best  exposure 
of  the  Papal  policy,  the  exhibiting  to  the  people 
the  beautiful  self-forgetting  life  of  Jesus  Christ 
as  recorded  in  the  Gospels.  "  The  Sacred  Scrip- 
tures," he  said,  "  are  the  property  of  the  people, 
and  one  which  no  one  should  be  allowed  to  wrest 
from  them.  .  .  .  Christ  and  His  apostles  con- 
verted the  world  by  making  known  the  Scriptures 
to  men  in  a  form  familiar  to  them,   .    .    .   and  I 


64  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

pray  with  all  my  heart  that  through  doing  the 
things  contained  in  this  book  we  may  all  together 
come  to  the  everlasting  life."  This  Bible  transla- 
tion he  placed  far  the  first  in  importance  of  all  his 
attempts  to  reform  the  English  Church,  and  he 
pursued  his  object  with  a  vigor  and  against  an 
opposition  that  reminds  one  of  the  old  monk  of 
Bethlehem  and  his  Bible  a  thousand  years  before. 


V. 

And  yet  it  must  be  frankly  acknowledged  that 
John  Wycliffe  was  not  the  man  to  accomplish  a 
reform  in  the  Church  of  England.  He  had  great 
qualities,  but  he  had  the  defects  of  his  great  quali- 
ties. He  was  a  born  fighter  and  England  sorely 
needed  such  at  the  time.  But  like  many  another 
great  fighter  he  was  rather  destructive  than  con- 
structive. He  was  better  at  attacking  faults  than 
at  laying  down  a  practical  scheme  of  Church 
reform  such  as  would  appeal  to  sensible  men. 

It  would  be  utterly  unfair  to  blame  him  for  the 
wild  teaching  of  his  followers  after  his  death.  But 
he  was  an  incautious  teacher.  And  as  he  grew 
older  opposition  tended  to  make  him  extreme  and 
one-sided.  He  became  almost  an  anti-clerical.  If 
he  had  his  way  he  would  have  made  a  clean  sweep 
of  much  of  the  ministerial  forms    and    ancient 


WYCLIFFE'S  VERSION.  03 

usages  of  the  Church.  From  attacking  the  faults 
of  certain  bishops  he  went  on  to  attack  the  insti- 
tution of  episcopacy  itself.  He  laid  little  stress 
on  Baptism,  though  he  did  splendid  work  in  vindi- 
cating the  position  of  Holy  Communion.  He 
spoke  slightingly  of  the  accustomed  ritual  of  the 
Church  service,  and  some  of  his  writings  would 
almost  suggest  that  his  ideal  of  a  church  would  be 
just  a  set  of  wandering  preachers  of  the  Gospel, 
and  not  necessarily  very  well  educated  preachers 
either,  for  in  his  later  years  he  spoke  slightingly 
even  of  learning  in  the  clergy.  "  The  Apostles," 
he  says,  "  had  no  college  degrees."  However 
deeply  we  sympathize  with  Wycliffe's  ideals  and 
self-devotion  yet  looking  back  now,  one  sees  the 
grave  probability  that  a  Reformation  carried  out 
on  his  lines  would  have  been  dangerous  to  the  con- 
tinuity of  the  Church  itself. 

It  is  necessary  to  think  of  this  if  we  would  judge 
quite  fairly  the  opposition  of  the  leading  English 
Churchmen  to  Wycliffe  and  his  Bible.  It  is  quite 
true  that  many  of  them  were  unspiritual  men.  It 
is  quite  true  too  that  there  was  a  strong  prejudice 
against  the  innovation  of  spreading  the  Bible 
freely  amongst  the  "  ignorant  laity."  One  of  the 
charges  against  Wycliffe  was  that  he  had  made  the 
Bible  common  and  more  open  to  laymen  and  even 
to  women  ( ! )  than  it  was  wont  to  be  to  clergy 
well  learned  and  of  good  understanding,  so  that 


66  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

the  pearl  of  the  Gospel  is  trodden  under  foot  of 
swine. " 

But  it  is  only  fair  to  say  that  in  this  case  there 
was  also  a  strong  suspicion  of  the  translator  and 
fear  of  his  theological  ideas  manifesting  itself  in 
his  translation.  We  can  see  now  that  this  sus- 
picion was  unfounded.  But  the  suspicion  was 
there.  Perhaps  a  wiser  and  more  tactful  reformer 
who  could  win  the  confidence  of  his  brother 
Churchmen  might  have  made  very  different  the 
story  of  the  first  English  Bible.  But  indomitable 
courage  was  the  chief  thing  needed  just  then  and 
it  would  have  been  a  very  unusual  type  of  man 
who,  fighting  sternly  the  dark  abuses  of  that  day, 
could  have  accurately  kept  his  balance. 

VI. 

The  result  of  the  trial  at  Blackfriars  was  that 
after  three  days'  deliberation  Wycliffe's  teaching 
was  condemned  and  at  a  subsequent  meeting  he 
himself  was  excommunicated.  But  he  was  allowed 
to  return  to  his  quiet  parsonage  at  Lutterworth, 
for  his  opponents  did  not  care  to  proceed  to  ex- 
tremities and  there  with  his  pile  of  old  Latin 
manuscripts  and  commentaries  he  laboured  on  at 
finishing  the  great  work  of  his  life  till  the  whole 
Bible  was  translated  into  the  "  modir  tonge,"  and 
England  received  for  the  first  time  in  her  history  a 


WYCLIFFE'S  VERSION.  67 

complete  version  of  the  Scriptures  x  in  the  Ian* 
guage  of  the  people. 

And  scarce  was  his  task  well  finished  when,  like 
his  great  predecessor  Bede,  the  brave  old  priest 
laid  down  his  life.  He  himself  had  expected  that 
a  violent  death  would  have  finished  his  course. 
His  enemies  were  many  and  powerful;  the  pri- 
mate, the  king,  and  the  Pope  were  against  him, 
with  the  friars,  whom  he  had  so  often  and  so 
fiercely  defied; 2  so  that  his  destruction  seemed  but 

1  This  honour  has  by  some  been  denied  to  Wycliffe,  chiefly  on 
the  authority  of  Sir  Thomas  More.  "  Ye  schall  understande," 
he  says,  "  that  ye  great  arch  heretike  John  Wycliffe,  whereas 
ye  Holy  Bible  was  long  before  his  dayes  by  vertuous  and  well 
lerned  men  translated  into  ye  Englische  tong  and  by  good  and 
godly  people  with  devotion  and  soberness  well  and  reverently 
read,  tooke  upon  him  of  malicious  purpose  to  translate  it  anew. 
In  whiche  translacioun  he  purposely  corrupted  ye  Holy  Text, 
maliciously  planting  therein  such  wordes  as  might  in  ye  reders' 
eres  serve  to  the  profe  of  such  heresies  as  he  was  aboute  to 
sowe.  .  .  .  Myself  haue  seen  and  can  shew  you  Bibles  fayre 
and  olde,  written  in  Englische,  which  have  been  known  and 
seen  by  ye  bischop  of  ye  dyoces  and  left  in  lemen's  hands  and 
women's." 

However,  he  gives  us  no  means  of  testing  his  statement,  and 
the  fullest  investigation  gives  no  trace  of  anything  but  separate 
fragments  of  Scripture  before  Wycliffe's  time.  Perhaps  Sir 
Thomas  More  had  seen  some  of  Wycliffe's  own  copies,  and  mis- 
took them  for  the  work  of  another  and  earlier  writer,  or  more 
probably  the  statement  was  made  hastily  and  without  proper 
foundation.  A  few  partial  translations  had  been  accomplished 
in  the  century  before  Wycliffe  by  Scorham,  Rolle  of  Hampole, 
and  others,  but  they  were  little  known.  Wycliffe's  great  com- 
plaint is  that  there  is  no  English  translation  of  the  Scriptures. 

2  The  scene  has  frequently  been  described  of  the  friars  press- 
ing round  what  seemed  the  deathbed  of  their  old  assailant, 
adjuring  him  to  recant  and  receive  their  absolution,  and  the 
stern  old  man  raising  himself  suddenly  to  startle  them  with  his 
fierce  prophetic  cry,  "  I  shall  not  die,  but  live  to  declare  again 
the  evil  deeds  of  the  friars !  " 


68  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

a  mere  question  of  time.  But  while  his  friends 
were  anxiously  anticipating  the  worst,  the  old  man 
u  was  not,  for  God  took  him." 

It  was  the  close  of  the  Old  Year,  the  last  Sun- 
day of  1384,  and  his  little  flock  at  Lutterworth 
were  kneeling  in  hushed  reverence  before  the 
altar,  when  suddenly,  at  the  time  of  the  elevation 
of  the  Sacrament,  he  fell  to  the  ground  in  a  violent 
fit  of  the  palsy,  and  never  spoke  again  until  his 
death  on  the  last  day  of  the  year. 

In  him  England  lost  one  of  her  best  and  great- 
est sons,  a  patriot  sternly  resenting  all  dishonour 
to  his  country,  a  reformer  who  ventured  his  life 
for  the  purity  of  the  Church  and  the  freedom  of 
the  Bible — an  earnest,  faithful  "  parsoun  of  a 
toune  "  standing  out  conspicuously  among  the 
clergy  of  the  time, 

"  For  Christe's  lore  and  his  apostles  twelve 
He  taughte — and  first  he  folwede  it  himselve."  * 

A  horrible  comment  on  the  intolerant  spirit  of 
the  time  is  this  extract  from  one  of  the  monkish 
writers  of  the  time  describing  his  death: — "  On 
the  feast  of  the  passion  of  St.  Thomas  of  Canter- 
bury, John  Wycliffe,  the  organ  of  the  devil,  the 
enemy  of    the  Church,  the  idol  of    heretics,  the 

1  Chaucer's  Prologue,  527.  The  whole  of  that  exquisite  descrip- 
tion of  the  "  parsoun  "  is  supposed  to  refer  to  Wycliffe,  whose 
teaching  the  poet  had  warmly  embraced. 


WYCLIFFE'S  VERSION.  69 

image  of  hypocrites,  the  restorer  of  schism,  the 
storehouse  of  lies,  the  sink  of  flattery,  being  struck 
by  the  horrible  judgment  of  God,  was  seized  with 
the  palsy  throughout  his  whole  body,  and  that 
mouth  which  was  to  have  spoken  huge  things 
against  God  and  His  saints,  and  holy  Church,  was 
miserably  drawn  aside,  and  afforded  a  frightful 
spectacle  to  beholders ;  his  tongue  was  speechless 
and  his  head  shook,  showing  plainly  that  the  curse 
which  God  had  thundered  forth  against  Cain  was 
also  inflicted  on  him." 

Some  time  after  his  death  a  petition  was  pre- 
sented to  the  Pope,  which  to  his  honour  he 
rejected,  praying  him  to  order  Wycliffe's  body  to 
be  taken  out  of  consecrated  ground  and  buried 
in  a  dung-hill.  But  forty  years  after,  by  a  decree 
of  the  Council  of  Constance,  the  old  Reformer's 
bones  were  dug  up  and  burned,  and  the  ashes  flung 
into  the  little  river  Swift,  which  "  runneth  hard 
by  his  church  at  Lutterworth."  And  so,  in  the 
oft-quoted  words  of  old  Fuller,  "  as  the  Swift 
bare  them  into  the  Severn,  and  the  Severn  into 
the  narrow  seas,  and  they  again  into  the  ocean, 
thus  the  ashes  of  Wycliffe  is  an  emblem  of  his 
teaching,  which  is  now  dispersed  over  all  the 
world." 


70  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 


VII. 

But  it  is  with  his  Bible  translation  that  we  are 
specially  concerned.  As  far  as  we  can  learn,  the 
whole  Bible  was  not  translated  by  the  Reformer. 
About  half  the  Old  Testament  is  ascribed  to 
Nicholas  de  Hereford,1  one  of  the  Oxford  leaders 
of  the  Lollards,  the  remainder,  with  the  whole  of 
the  New  Testament,  being  done  by  Wycliffe  him- 
self. About  eight  years  after  its  completion  the 
whole  was  revised  by  Richard  Purvey,  his  curate 
and  intimate  friend,  whose  manuscript  is  still  in 
the  library  of  Trinity  College,  Dublin.  Purvey's 
preface  is  a  most  interesting  old  document,  and 
shows  not  only  that  he  was  deeply  in  earnest  about 
his  work,  but  that  he  thoroughly  understood  the 
intellectual  and  moral  conditions  necessary  for  its 
success. 

"  A  simpel  creature,"  he  says,  "  hath  translated 

1  He  appears  to  have  stopped  abruptly  in  the  middle  of  the 
verse  (Baruch  iii.  20),  probably  at  the  time  of  his  seizure  for 
heresy.  Here  is  a  specimen  of  his  translation,  Psalm  xxiii. : — 
"  The  Lord  gouerneth  me  and  no  thing  to  me  shal  lacke ;  in  the 
place  of  leswe  where  he  me  ful  sette.  Ouer  watir  of  fulfilling 
he  nurshide  me ;  my  soule  he  conuertide.  He  broghte  down 
upon  me  the  sties  of  rightwiseness ;  for  his  name.  For  whi  and 
if  I  shal  go  in  the  myddel  of  the  shadewe  of  deth;  I  shal  not 
dreden  euelis,  for  thou  art  with  me.  Thi  yerde  and  thi  staf ; 
the  han  confortid  me.  Thou  hast  maad  redi  in  thi  sighte  a 
bord;  aghen  them  that  trublyn  me.  Thou  hast  myche  fatted  in 
oile  myn  hed  and  my  chalis  makende  ful  drunken,  hou  right  cler 
it  is.  And  thi  mercy  shall  vnderfolewe  me;  alle  the  dayis  of 
my  lif.  And  that  I  dwelle  in  the  hous  of  the  Lord  in  to  the 
lengthe  of  dayis." 


WYCLIFFE'S  VERSION.  71 

the  Scripture  out  of  Latin  into  Englische.  First, 
this  simpel  creature  had  much  travayle  with  divers 
fellows  and  helpers  to  gather  many  old  Bibles  and 
other  doctors  and  glosses  to  make  one  Latin  Bible 
some  deal  true  and  then  to  study  it  anew  the  texte 
and  any  other  help  he  might  get,  especially  Lyra 
on  the  Old  Testament,  which  helped  him  much 
with  this  work.  The  third  time  to  counsel  with 
olde  grammarians  and  divines  of  hard  words  and 
hard  sentences  how  they  might  best  be  under- 
stood and  translated,  the  fourth  time  to  translate 
as  clearly  as  he  could  to  the  sense,  and  to  have 
many  good  fellows  and  cunnyng  at  the  correcting 
of  the  translacioun.  ...  A  translator  hath  great 
nede  to  studie  well  the  sense  both  before  and  after, 
and  then  also  he  hath  nede  to  live  a  clene  life  and 
be  full  devout  in  preiers,  and  have  not  his  wit  occu- 
pied about  worldli  things  that  the  Holy  Spyrit 
author  of  all  wisdom  and  cunnynge  and  truthe 
dresse  him  for  his  work  and  suffer  him  not  to  err." 
And  he  concludes  with  the  prayer,  "  God  grant  to 
us  all  grace  to  ken  well  and  to  kepe  well  Holie 
Writ,  and  to  suffer  joiefulli  some  paine  for  it  at 
the  laste." 

Like  all  the  earlier  English  translations,  Wyc- 
liffe's  Bible  was  only  a  translation  of  a  translation. 
It  was  based  on  the  Latin  Vulgate  of  St.  Jerome; 
and  this  is  the  great  defect  in  his  work,  as  com- 
pared with  the  versions  that  followed.     He  was 


72  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

not  capable  of  consulting  the  original  Greek  and 
Hebrew  even  if  he  had  access  to  them — in  fact, 
there  was  probably  no  man  in  England  at  the  time 
capable  of  doing  so;  and  therefore,  though  he 
represents  the  Latin  faithfully  and  well,  the  Ver- 
sion had  grown  corrupted  in  the  course  of  trans- 
mission and  he  of  course  handed  on  its  errors  as 
faithfully  as  its  perfections.  But,  such  as  it  is,  it 
is  a  fine  specimen  of  fourteenth  century  English. 
He  translated  not  for  scholars  nor  for  nobles,  but 
for  the  plain  people,  and  his  style  was  such  as 
suited  those  for  whom  he  wrote — plain,  vigorous, 
homely,  and  yet  with  all  its  homeliness  full  of  a 
solemn  grace  and  dignity,  which  made  men  feel 
that  they  were  reading  no  ordinary  book.  He 
uses  many  striking  expressions,  such  as  2  Tim. 
ii.  4,  "  No  man  holding  knighthood  to  God, 
wlappith  himself  with  worldli  nedes;  "  and  many 
of  the  best-known  phrases  in  our  present  Bible 
originated  with  him,  e.  g.}  "  the  beame  and  the 
mote,"  "  the  depe  thingis  of  God,"  "  strait  is  the 
gate  and  narewe  is  the  waye,"  "  no  but  a  man 
schall  be  born  againe,"  "  the  cuppe  of  blessing 
which  we  blessen,"  &c,  &c. 

On  the  opposite  page  we  give  a  specimen  from 
Wycliffe's  Gospels,  and  it  will  be  an  interesting 
illustration  of  the  growth  of  our  language  to  com* 
pare  it,  on  the  one  hand,  with  the  specimens  40a 
years  earlier  given  in  the  previous  chapter,  and 


WYCLIFFE'S  VERSION.  73 

on  the  other  with  the  present  Revised  Version, 
which  is  later  in  date  by  500  years.  The  resem- 
blance to  the  latter  will  be  still  more  marked  if  the 
sound  only  is  followed,  disregarding  the  spelling. 

matt.  m.  1-6.— fit  tbilfte  oaves  came  3oon 
»aptist  precbpnge  in  tbc  Desert  of  3uoe, 
saving,  3E>o  ve  penaunce :  for  tbe  Rpnabom 
of  beuens  sball  neigb.  f  orsotbe  tbis  is 
be  of  wbom  it  is  sato  bp.  |)sape  tbe  pro- 
pbete,  H  voice  of  a  crpinge  in  oesert,  flDafce 
pe  reop  tbe  wapes  of  tbe  Xoro,  make  pe 
rigbtful  tbe  patbes  of  bpnu  jforsotbe 
tbat  line  3oon  babbe  clotb  of  tbe  beeris  of 
cameplls  anb  a  gfrbil  of  sfcpn  about  bis 
leenois;  sotbelp  bis  mete  weren  locustis 
anb  bonp  of  tbe  wobe»  Gbanne  3erusa* 
lem  wente  out  to  bpm,  anb  al  3uoe,  anb  al 
tbe  cuntre  aboute  3oroan,  anb  tbei  weren 
crpsteneb  of  bpm  in  3orbant  ftnowlecbpnge 
tbere  spnnes* 

It  is  somewhere  recorded  that  at  a  meeting  in 
Yorkshire  recently  a  long  passage  of  Wycliffe's 
Bible  was  read,  which  was  quite  intelligible 
throughout  to  those  who  heard  it. 


74  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

It  will  be  seen  that  this  specimen  is  not  divided 
into  verses.  Verse  division  belongs  to  a  much 
later  period,1  and  though  convenient  for  refer- 
ence, it  sometimes  spoils  the  sense  a  good  deal. 
The  division  into  chapters  appears  in  Wycliffe's 
as  in  our  own  Bibles.  This  chapter  division  had 
shortly  before  been  made  by  a  Cardinal  Hugo,2 
for  the  purpose  of  a  Latin  Concordance,  and  its 
convenience  brought  it  quickly  into  use.  But,  like 
the  verse  division,  it  is  often  very  badly  done,  the 
object  aimed  at  seeming  to  be  uniformity  of  length 
rather  than  any  natural  division  of  the  subject.3 
Sometimes  a  chapter  breaks  off  in  the  middle  of  z 
narrative  or  an  argument,  and,  especially  in  St. 
Paul's  epistles,  the  incorrect  division  often  becomes 
misleading.  The  removal  as  far  as  possible  of 
these  divisions  is  one  of  the  advantages  of  the 
Revised  Version  as  will  be  noticed  later  on. 

*It  first  appears  in  the  Geneva  Bible,  1560.  See  p.  122.  We 
owe  it  to  Robert  Stephen,  the  celebrated  editor  of  the  Greek 
Testament,  who  hurriedly  arranged  it  on  a  journey  from  Paris 
to  Lyons.  "  I  think,"  a  commentator  quaintly  remarks,  "  it  had 
been  better  done  on  his  knees  in  the  closet." 

2  The  writer  remembers  the  question  at  a  Divinity  examina- 
tion, "Who  divided  the  Bible  into  chapters?"  to  which  a  fellow 
student  promptly  replied,  "  Victor  Hugo,  sir !  "  "  Quite  right," 
said  the  examiner,  whose  hearing  was  defective. 

3  Compare,  for  example,  the  beginnings  of  Matt,  x.,  xx. ; 
Mark  iii.,  ix. ;  Luke  xxi. ;  Acts  viii. ;  1  Cor.  xi. ;  2  Cor.  v.,  vii., 
&c,  &c.  An  awkward  division  for  a  clergyman  reading  the 
lessons  is  at  end  of  Acts  xxi.,  where,  however  he  may  manage 
his  voice,  it  is  difficult  to  avoid  reading,  "  Paul  spake  in  the 
Hebrew  tongue,  saying,  Here  endeth  the  second  lesson." 


WYCLIFFE'S  VERSION.  75 


VIII. 

The  book  had  a  very  wide  circulation.  While 
the  Anglo-Saxon  versions  were  confined  for  the 
most  part  to  the  few  religious  houses  where  they 
were  written,  Wycliffe's  Bible,  in  spite  of  its  dis- 
advantage of  being  only  in  manuscript,  was  circu- 
lated largely  through  the  kingdom;  and  though 
the  cost  restricted  its  possession  to  the  wealthier 
classes,1  those  who  could  not  hope  to  possess  it 
gained  access  to  it  too,  as  well  through  their  own 
efforts  as  through  the  ministrations  of  Wycliffe's 
u  pore  priestes."  A  considerable  sum  was  paid  for 
even  a  few  sheets  of  the  manuscript,  a  load  of  hay 
was  given  for  permission  to  read  it  for  a  certain 
period  one  hour  a  day,2  and  those  who  could  not 

1  Even  now,  after  500  years,  one  hundred  and  seventy  of  these 
copies  remain,  some  of  them  of  great  interest  from  the  inscrip- 
tions on  their  title-pages.  One  bears  the  name  of  Henry  VI., 
another  of  Richard,  the  crookbacked  Duke  of  Gloucester,  others 
belonging  to  Henry  VII.  and  Edward  VI.,  and  one  has  an 
inscription  telling  that  it  was  presented  to  Queen  Elizabeth  as  a 
birthday  gift  by  one  of  her  chaplains. 

2  The  readers,  as  might  be  expected,  often  surreptitiously  copy- 
ing portions  of  special  interest.  One  is  reminded  of  the  story  in 
ancient  Irish  history  of  a  curious  decision  arising  out  of  an 
incident  of  this  kind  nearly  a  thousand  years  before,  which 
seems  to  have  influenced  the  history  of  Christianity  in  Britain. 
St.  Columb,  on  a  visit  to  the  aged  St.  Finian  in  Ulster,  had  per- 
mission to  read  in  the  Psalter  belonging  to  his  host.  But  every 
night  while  the  good  old  saint  was  sleeping,  the  young  one  was 
busy  in  the  chapel  writing  by  a  miraculous  light  till  he  had 
completed  a  copy  of  the  whole  Psalter.  The  owner  of  the 
Psalter  discovering  this,  demanded  that  it  should  be  given  up, 
as  it  had  been  copied  unlawfully  from  his  book;  while  the 
copyist  insisted  that,  the  materials  and  labor  being  his,  he  was 

6 


76  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

afford  even  such  expense  adopted  what  means  they 
could.  It  is  touching  to  read  such  incidents  as  that 
of  one  Alice  Collins,  sent  for  to  the  little  gather- 
ings "  to  recite  the  ten  commandments  and  parts 
of  the  Epistles  of  SS.  Paul  and  Peter,  which  she 
knew  by  heart."  "  Certes,"  says  old  John  Foxe 
in  his  "  Book  of  Martyrs,"  "  the  zeal  of  those 
Christian  days  seems  much  superior  to  this  of  our 
day,  and  to  see  the  travail  of  them  may  well  shame 
our  careless  times." 

But  such  study  was  carried  on  at  considerable 
risk.  The  appearance  of  Wyclifte's  Bible  aroused 
at  once  fierce  opposition.  A  bill  was  brought  into 
Parliament  to  forbid  the  circulation  of  the  Scrip- 
tures in  English;  but  the  sturdy  John  of  Gaunt 
vigorously  asserted  the  right  of  the  people  to  have 
the  Word  of  God  in  their  own  tongue ;  "  for 
why,"  said  he,  "  are  we  to  be  the  dross  of  the 
nations?"  However,  the  rulers  of  the  Church 
were  determined  to  prevent  the  circulation  of  the 
book.  Archbishop  Arundel,  a  zealous  but  not  very 
learned  prelate,  complained  to  the  Pope  of  u  that 
pestilent  wretch,  John  Wycliffe,  the  son  of  the  old 
Serpent,  the  forerunnner  of  Antichrist,  who  had 

entitled  to  what  he  had  written.  The  dispute  was  referred  to 
Diarmad  the  king  at  Tara,  and  his  decision  (genuinely  Irish) 
was  given  in  St.  Finian's  favor.  "  To  every  book,"  said  he, 
"belongs  its  son-book  (copy),  as  to  every  cow  belongs  her  calf," 
Columb  complained  of  the  decision  as  unjust,  and  the  dispute  is 
said  to  have  been  one  of  the  causes  of  his  leaving  Ireland  for 
Iona  (see  note,  p.  43). 


£    o 


WYCLIFFE'S  VERSION.  77 

completed  his  iniquity  by  inventing  a  new  transla- 
tion of  the  Scriptures;"  and  shortly  after,  the 
Convocation  of  Canterbury  forbade  such  transla- 
tions, under  penalty  of  the  major  excommuni- 
cation. 

"  God  grant  us,"  runs  the  prayer  in  the  old 
Wycliffe  Bible  preface,  "  to  ken  and  to  kepe  well 
Holie  Writ,  and  to  suffer  joiefulli  some  paine  for 
it  at  the  laste."  What  a  meaning  that  prayer 
must  have  gained  when  the  readers  of  the  book 
were  burned  with  the  copies  round  their  necks, 
when  husbands  were  made  to  witness  against  their 
wives,  and  children  forced  to  light  the  death-fires 
of  their  parents,  and  possessors  of  the  banned 
Wycliffe  Bible  were  hunted  down  as  if  they  were 
wild  beasts. 

It  is  difficult  to  estimate  the  silent  influence  of 
the  Wycliffe  Bible  during  the  following  century 
on  the  Church  and  nation  of  England,  or  how 
much  it  counts  as  a  remote  cause  of  the  great 
movement  of  the  Reformation.  Though  banned 
and  proscribed  it  must  have  largely  leavened 
the  spirit  of  the  people.  There  is  a  marvel- 
lous quickening  power  in  the  inspired  Word 
of  God  secretly  working  in  the  springs  of 
national  life,  and  up  to  this  time  England 
had  it  only  in  very  fragmentary  form.  An 
open  Bible  spreads  a  wholesome  light  in  which 
errors  and  corruptions  have  to  flee  away.     It  is, 


78  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

to  use  a  simile  of  a  graceful  modern  writer,1  as 
when  you  raise  with  your  staff  an  old  flat  stone, 
with  the  grass  forming  a  little  hedge,  as  it  were, 
around  it  as  it  lies.  "  Beneath  it,  what  a  revela- 
tion! Blades  of  grass  flattened  down,  colorless, 
matted  together,  as  if  they  had  been  bleached  and 
ironed;  hideous  crawling  things;  black  crickets 
with  their  long  filaments  sticking  out  on  all  sides ; 
motionless,  slug-like  creatures;  young  larvae,  per- 
haps more  horrible  in  their  pulpy  stillness  than  in 
the  infernal  wriggle  of  maturity.  But  no  sooner 
is  the  stone  turned  and  the  wholesome  light  of  day 
let  in  on  this  compressed  and  blinded  community 
of  creeping  things  than  all  of  them  that  have  legs 
rush  blindly  about,  butting  against  each  other  and 
everything  else  in  their  way,  and  end  in  a  general 
stampede  to  underground  retreats  from  the  region 
poisoned  by  sunshine.  Next  year  you  will  find  the 
grass  growing  fresh  and  green  where  the  stone 
lay — the  ground  bird  builds  her  nest  where  the 
beetle  had  his  hole,  the  dandelion  and  the  butter- 
cup are  growing  there,  and  the  broad  fans  of 
insect-angels  open  and  shut  over  their  golden  discs 
as  the  rhythmic  waves  of  blissful  consciousness 
pulsate  through  their  glorified  being. 

"  The  stone  is  ancient  error,  the  grass  is  human 
nature  borne  down  and  bleached  of  all  its  color  by 

1  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  in  the  "  Autocrat  of  the  Breakf  asv- 
table." 


WYCLIFFE'S  VERSION.  79 

it.  He  who  turns  the  stone  is  whosoever  puts  the 
staff  of  truth  to  the  old  lying  incubus,  whether  he 
do  it  with  a  serious  face  or  a  laughing  one.  The 
next  year  stands  for  the  coming  time.  Then 
shall  the  nature  which  had  lain  blanched  and 
broken  rise  in  its  full  stature  and  native  lines 
in  the  sunshine.  Then  shall  God's  minstrels  build 
their  nests  in  the  hearts  of  a  newborn  humanity. 
Then  shall  beauty — divinity  taking  outline  and 
color — light  upon  the  souls  of  men  as  the  butter- 
fly, image  of  the  beatified  spirit  rising  from  the 
dust,  soars  from  the  shell  that  held  a  poor  grub, 
which  would  never  have  found  wings  unless  that 
stone  had  been  lifted.^ 


CHAPTER  VI. 

tyndale' s  version. 

I.  Printing.  II.  The  Renaissance.  III.  William  Tyndale.  IV. 
The  first  printed  New  Testament.  V.  Clerical  Opposition. 
VI.  The  Bible  and  the  Church.  VII.  Two  Types  of 
Reformers.  VIII.  Pakington  and  the  Bishop.  IX.  Scene 
at  St.  Edwards.  X.  The  Death  of  Tyndale.  XI.  The  Tyn- 
dale Bible. 

After  Wycliffe  there  is  an  interval  of  a  hun- 
dred years  before  we  come  to  the  next  great  ver- 
sion of  the  Bible,  but  in  that  interval  occurred 
what,  more  than  any  other  event  that  ever  hap- 
pened, has  affected  the  history  of  the  English 
Bible,  and  indeed  the  history  of  the  English  nation 
altogether.  Up  to  this  time  in  wild  Iona,  in  the 
monasteries  of  ancient  Britain,  in  the  great  homes 
of  learning  through  the  continent  of  Europe,  men 
and  women  sat  in  the  silence  of  their  cells  slowly 
copying  out  letter  by  letter  the  pages  of  the  Scrip- 
ture manuscripts,  watching  patiently  month  after 
month  the  volumes  grow  beneath  their  hands.  But 
with  Wycliffe's  days  this  toilsome  manuscript 
period  closes  forever. 

About  twenty  years  after  the  death  of  Wycliffe 
there  was  living  in  the  old  German  town  of  Mentz 

80 


TYNDALE'S  VERSION.  81 

a  boy  bearing  the  not  very  attractive  name  of 
Johann  Gensfleisch,  which  means,  put  into  plain 
English,  John  Gooseflesh.  His  mother  was  a 
dresser  of  parchments  for  the  writing  of  manu- 
scripts. One  morning — so  runs  the  story — he 
had  been  cutting  the  letters  of  his  name  out  of  the 
bark  of  a  tree,  and  having  been  left  alone  in  the 
house  soon  after,  amused  himself  by  spreading 
out  the  letters  on  a  board  so  as  to  form  again 
the  words, 


3obann  (Benefieiecb* 

A  pot  of  purple  dye  was  beside  the  fire,  and  by 
some  awkward  turn  one  of  his  letters  droped  into 
it.  Quickly,  without  stopping  to  think,  he  snatched 
it  out  of  the  boiling  liquid,  and  as  quickly  let  it 
drop  again,  this  time  on  a  white  dressed  skin 
which  lay  on  a  bench  near  by,  the  result  being  a 
beautiful  purple  j)  on  a  deep  yellowish  white 
ground.  Whether  the  boy  admired  the  beautiful 
marks  on  the  skin  or  meditated  ruefully  of  future 
marks  on  his  own  skin  as  a  possible  consequence 
history  does  not  record,  but  it  would  seem  as  if 
somehow  that  image  rooted  itself  in  his  mind,  to 
bear  rich  fruit  on  a  future  day.  For,  thirty  years 
afterward,  when  all  Germany  was  ringing  with 
the  name  of  Johann  Gutenberg,  and  his  magical 


82  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

art  of  printing,  the  good  people  of  Mentz  recog- 
nized in  the  inventor  their  young  townsman  Gens- 
fleisch,  who  had  meantime  taken  his  maternal 
name.1  Whatever  truth  there  may  be  in  the 
legend,  certain  it  is  that  Gutenberg's  printing  press 
was  working  in  Mentz  about  the  year  1450,  and 
the  first  completed  book  that  issued  from  that 
press  is  said  to  have  been  the  Latin  Bible.2 

This  is  not  the  place  to  tell  what  has  been  so 
often  told  already  of  the  immense  influence  of  this 
new  invention  on  the  progress  of  knowledge  in  the 
world.  We  have  but  to  do  with  its  effects  as  mani- 
fested in  the  history  of  the  Bible,  and  for  this  it 
will  be  sufficient  to  remark  that  the  Bible  which 
took  Wyckliffe's  copyists  ten  months  to  prepare 
can  now  be  produced  by  a  single  London  firm  at 
the  rate  of  120  per  hour,  that  is,  two  copies  every 
minute;  while,  for  cost  of  production,  we  may 
compare  the  Wycliffe  Bible  at  a  price  equal  to  £40 
of  our  money,3  with  a  New  Testament  complete 

1  He  was  the  son  of  Frilo  Gensfleisch  and  Elsie  Gutenberg. 
The  German  law  recognized  in  certain  cases  this  taking  of  the 
maternal   name. 

2  It  is  known  as  the  Mazarin  Bible,  from  the  fact  that  a  copy 
of  it  was  found  about  a  century  ago  in  Cardinal  Mazarin's 
library  at  Paris. 

3  Mr.  Froude  ("Hist.  Eng.")  has  some  interesting  pages  to 
show  the  value  of  money  in  those  days.  A  pig  or  a  goose  was 
bought  for  4d.,  a  chicken  for  id.,  a  hen  for  2d.;  land  was  let  at 
8d.  per  acre;  laborers  were  hired  at  id.  per  day;  the  stipend 
of  a  parish  priest  was  £5,  6s.  8d.  a  year;  and  Bradford,  the 
martyr,  writes  of  his  fellowship  at  Oxford,  "  It  is  worth  £7  a 
year  to  me,  so  you  see  what  a  good  lord  God  is  to  me." 


TYNDALE'S  VERSION.  83 

in  paper  covers  that  has  lately  been  published  for 
one  penny! 

II. 

Now  mark  the  coincidence.  At  the  very  same 
time,  almost  in  the  very  same  year,  occurred  an- 
other event  which  in  God's  providence  largely 
influenced  the  history  of  Bible  translation. 

In  November,  1454,  came  the  invention  of 
movable  type  in  printing.  In  May,  1454,  came 
the  fall  of  Constantinople,  and  crowds  of  Greek 
scholars  were  driven  for  refuge  to  Western 
Europe,  teaching  the  language  of  the  rediscovered 
classics,  and  more  important  for  this  story,  the 
language  in  which  the  New  Testament  was  writ- 
ten. The  great  movement  of  "  The  Renaissance  " 
had  come,  the  revival  of  learning  in  Europe  free- 
ing men's  minds  from  ignorance  and  men's  spirits 
from  blind  obedience  to  despotism,  and  one  of  its 
most  important  factors  was  this  revival  of  Greek 
learning. 

The  reader  will  remember  that  up  to  this  time 
our  pile  of  ancient  u  manuscripts,"  i.  e.y  Scrip- 
tures in  their  original  language,  remains  un- 
touched, the  earlier  English  Scriptures  being  trans- 
lated, not  from  the  original  Hebrew  and  Greek, 
but  from  Latin  versions  which  themselves  were 
only  translations.    For  many  centuries  Greek  had 


84  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

been  practically  unknown  in  Western  Europe  but 
now,  as  has  been  finely  said,  "  Greece  rose  from 
the  grave  with  the  New  Testament  in  her  hand  " 
and  before  the  close  of  the  century  had  become 
an  important  part  of  University  education  in 
Europe. 

And  with  it  came  the  revival  of  the  study  of 
Hebrew.  The  first  Greek  grammar  was  pub- 
lished in  1476  and  the  first  Hebrew  grammar  in 
1503.  Then  came  Erasmus,  a  great  Greek 
scholar,  a  friend  of  Sir  Thomas  More,  and  set 
himself  to  the  study  of  the  best  old  manuscripts 
he  could  find  and  so  gave  to  the  world  in  15 16  his 
famous  Greek  New  Testament.  His  manuscripts 
were  not  very  ancient  nor  critically  valuable.  His 
Greek  Testament  consequently  was  not  very  per- 
fect. But  it  was  a  precious  boon  to  the  Church 
and  the  precursor  of  a  great  movement  in  Bible 
translation. 

III. 

First  (1)  the  Printing  Press;  Next  (2)  the 
revival  of  Greek  learning;  Then  (3)  Erasmus' 
Greek  Testament;  and  now  (4)  at  this  critical 
period  came  forth  the  man  who  was  to  use  these 
new  powers  with  such  marvellous  effect  in  the  ser- 
vice of  the  English  Bible.  In  1483,  the  year  after 
the  birth  of  Luther,  and  a  hundred  years  after  the 


TYNDALE'S  VERSION.  85 

death  of  Wycliffe,  William  Tyndale  was  born.  He 
grew  up  a  thoughtful,  studious  youth,  and  at  an 
early  age  won  for  himself  in  Oxford  a  distin- 
guished position  for  scholarship.  Soon  afterward 
he  moved  to  Cambridge  where  Erasmus  had  been 
professor.  It  was  just  about  the  time  when  Cam* 
bridge  had  received  the  new  Greek  Testament. 
To  Tyndale,  who  was  a  good  Greek  scholar  and 
conversant  with  the  Scriptures,  this  book  of 
Erasmus  was  an  inspiration.  Probably  it  first  sug- 
gested to  him  his  design  of  an  English  New  Tes- 
tament translated  from  the  original.  At  any  rate 
the  design  was  in  his  mind,  for  shortly  afterward 
we  learn  that  one  day,  in  the  sudden  heat  of  con- 
troversy, he  startled  the  company  present  by  his 
memorable  declaration,  whose  fulfillment  was 
afterward  the  object  of  his  life.  "  We  had  bet- 
ter," said  his  opponent,  "  be  without  God's  laws 
than  the  Pope's."  And  Tyndale  rose  in  his  indig- 
nant wrath.  "  I  defy  the  Pope,"  he  cried,  "  and 
all  his  laws;  and  if  God  spare  me  I  will  one  day 
make  the  boy  that  drives  the  plough  in  England  to 
know  more  of  Scripture  than  the  Pope  does."1 

He  had  already  translated  some  portions  from 
the  original  Greek,  and  now,  encouraged  by  the 

1  An  edition  of  Tyndale's  Testament,  prepared  during  his  im- 
prisonment, is  sometimes  spoken  of  as  the  literal  fulfillment  of 
this  vow — a  Testament  for  the  ploughboys  of  his  native  county. 
It  contains  words  seemingly  of  a  provincial  dialect — faether, 
maester,  sloene,  oones,  whorsse,  &c.  More  probably,  however, 
these  peculiarities  are  due  to  a  Flemish  proof-reader. 


86  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE, 

report  he  had  heard  of  him  as  a  patron  of  the 
"  new  learning,"  he  applied  to  Cuthbert  Tonstal, 
Bishop  of  London,  for  permission  to  carry  on  his 
work  in  the  episcopal  household  under  his  lord- 
ship's patronage,  and  with  episcopal  sanction. 
The  Bishop,  he  says,  answered  him  that  his  house 
was  full,  he  had  more  than  he  could  well  feed,  and 
advised  him  to  seek  elsewhere  in  London.  He 
did  so  and  was  kindly  received  by  Humphrey 
Monmouth,  a  merchant  near  the  Tower,  and  in 
his  house  for  nearly  a  year  he  assiduously  prose- 
cuted his  task,  perhaps  still  hoping  for  bishops' 
sanction  and  publishers'  favour. 

But  he  hoped  in  vain.  It  was  a  troubled  time  in 
tfie  Church  of  England.  Serious  men  were  look- 
ing across  the  sea  to  Germany  where  Luther  had 
nailed  his  theses  to  the  church  door  and  burned 
the  Papal  bull.  Many  in  England  were  in  sym- 
pathy with  this  revolt  against  authority  and 
amongst  them  Monmouth,  the  protector  of  Tyn- 
dale,  and  probably  also  Tyndale  himself.  Many 
more  dreaded  it  as  a  beginning  of  anarchy  and 
schism,  especially  the  Bishops  and  chief  ecclesias- 
tics. These  latter  would  be  very  unlikely  at  such 
a  crisis  to  favour  the  innovation  of  a  People's 
Bible,  especially  one  translated  by  an  unknown 
man,  perhaps  even  already  a  suspected  man,  and 
Tyndale  knew  well  that  without  the  sanction  of 
the  Church  no  publisher  would  dare  to  print  his 


TYNDALE'S  VERSION.  87 

New  Testament.  "  Wherefore,"  he  sadly  says, 
"  I  perceived  that  not  only  in  my  lord  of  London's 
palace,  but  in  all  England,  there  was  no  room  for 
attempting  a  translation  of  the  Scriptures."  1 


IV. 


Tyndale,  however,  was  not  one  of  those  who, 
having  put  their  hands  to  the  plough,  look  back. 
He  had  determined  that  England  should  have  the 
Word  of  God  spread  among  her  people  by  means 
of  this  new  invention  of  printing,  and  he  had 
calmly  counted  the  cost.  If  his  work  could  be 
done  in  England,  well.  If  not — if  only  a  life  of 
exile  could  accomplish  it — then  that  life  of  exile 
he  would  cheerfully  accept.  So  in  1524  he  left 
his  native  land,  never  to  see  it  again;  and  at  Ham- 
burg, in  poverty  and  distress,  and  amid  constant 
danger,  the  brave-hearted  exile  worked  at  his 
translation,2  and  so  diligently  that  the  following 
year  we  find  him  at  Cologne  with  the  sheets  of  his 
quarto  New  Testament  already  in  the  printer's 
hands. 

1  Tyndale's  Preface. 

2  He  seems  to  have  had  no  help  in  the  translation.  For  cor- 
recting proofs  and  such  work  he  had  one  Friar  Roye,  whom  he 
rather  humorously  describes.  "  As  long  as  he  had  no  money  I 
could  somewhat  rule  him,  but  as  soon  as  he  had  gotten  him 
money  he  became  like  himself  again.  So  as  soon  as  I  was  ended 
I  bade  him  farewell  for  our  two  lives,  and  as  men  say  a  day 
longer." 


88  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

But  a  sad  disappointment  was  in  store  for  him. 
He  had  kept  his  secret  well,  and  he  hoped  that  in 
a  few  months  more  the  little  book  would  be 
spreading  in  thousands  through  the  length  and 
breadth  of  England.  But  just  as  his  hopes  were 
highest,  one  day  there  came  to  him  a  hurried  mes- 
sage at  his  lodgings,  and  half  distracted  he  rushed 
to  the  printer's  house,  seized  all  the  sheets  he 
could  lay  hands  on,  and  fled  from  the  town.  A 
priest  named  Cochlaeus  had  heard  an  idle  boast 
of  some  printers  which  roused  his  suspicions,  and 
by  diligently  plying  them  with  wine  the  startling 
secret  at  length  came  out  that  an  English  New 
Testament  was  actually  in  the  press,  and  already 
far  on  its  way  to  completion.  Quite  horrified  at 
such  a  conspiracy,  "  worse,"  he  thought,  "  than 
that  of  the  eunuchs  against  Ahasuerus,"  he  at 
once  gave  information  to  the  magistrates,  and 
demanded  that  the  sheets  should  be  seized,  while 
he  at  the  same  time  despatched  a  messenger  to  the 
English  bishops  to  warn  them  of  this  unexpected 
danger.  Hence  the  consternation  of  Tyndale  and 
his  hurried  flight  from  Cologne. 

With  his  precious  sheets  he  escaped  to  Worms, 
where  the  enthusiasm  for  Luther  and  the  Refor- 
mation was  then  at  its  height,  and  there  at  length 
he  accomplished  his  design,  producing  for  the  first 
time    a    complete    printed    New    Testament    in 


TYNDALE'S  VERSION.  89 

English.1  Knowing  of  the  information  that 
Cochlaeus  had  given,  and  that  in  consequence  the 
books  would  be  jealously  watched,  he  printed  also 
an  edition  in  smaller  size,  as  more  likely  to  escape 
detection,  and  at  once  made  provision  for  the  for- 
warding his  dangerous  merchandise  to  England. 
In  cases,  in  barrels,  in  bales  of  cloth,  in  sacks  of 
flour,  every  secret  way  that  could  be  devised,  the 
books  were  sent;  and  in  spite  of  the  utmost  vigi- 
lance in  watching  the  ports,  many  of  them  arrived 
and  in  a  few  years  the  books  were  scattered  far 
and  wide  through  the  country. 


Again  comes  before  us  the  obvious  question, 
already  discussed  in  Wycliffe's  case,  How  does  it 
happen  that  bishops  and  clergy  and  leading  relig- 
ious laymen  of  the  high  type  of  Sir  Thomas  More, 
opposed  so  strongly  the  circulation  of  Tyndale's 
Bible?     Be  it  clearly  understood  that  we  have  no 

1We  have  an  interesting  account  of  Tyndale's  work  at 
Worms,  from  the  diary  of  a  German  scholar  who  was  a  casual 
visitor  there  in  1526.  After  mentioning  other  subjects  of  con- 
versation at  the  dinner-table,  the  writer  goes  on  to  say — "  One 
told  us  that  6,000  copies  of  the  English  New  Testament  had  been 
printed  at  Worms,  that  it  was  translated  by  an  Englishman  who 
lived  there  with  two  of  his  countrymen,  who  was  so  complete  a 
master  of  seven  languages — Hebrew,  Greek,  Latin,  Italian, 
Spanish,  English,  French — that  you  would  fancy  that  whichever 
he  spoke  in  was  his  native  tongue.  He  told  us  also  that  the 
English,  in  spite  of  the  active  opposition  of  the  King,  were  so 
eager  for  the  Gospel  that  they  would  buy  the  New  Testament 
even  if  they  had  to  give  100,000  pieces  of  money  for  it." 


90  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

desire  to  be  apologists  for  More  or  for  the 
Church.  We  are  simply  trying  to  understand  a 
puzzling  situation.  Naturally  the  persecuted 
party  at  the  time  assumed  that  it  was  because  they 
were  all  bigoted,  arrogant  tyrants  opposed  to  the 
spread  of  the  pure  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ.  Men 
of  those  days  did  not  usually  seek  to  look  for  the 
good  in  their  opponents.  Luther's  enemies  used 
to  say  that  because  he  burned  the  Pope's  bull  he 
would  burn  the  Pope  himself  also  if  he  could. 
Even  the  kindly  Tyndale  was  roused  to  say  that 
the  bishops  who  could  burn  the  Gospel  of  Christ 
would  do  the  same  to  Christ  himself  if  they  had 
had  Him. 

But  practical  men  looking  back  calmly  from  the 
distance  of  centuries  are  suspicious  of  such  sweep- 
ing statements.  They  see  the  great  opponents, 
More  and  Tyndale,  both  perhaps  the  noblest 
Englishmen  of  their  day,  both  saints  of  God,  both 
martyrs  who  laid  down  their  lives  for  conscience 
sake,  and  they  suspect  that  there  must  be  some- 
thing to  say  on  both  sides.  Our  experience  of 
religious  and  political  controversies  is  that  when 
men  get  to  know  sympathetically  their  opponents, 
they  frequently  find  that  the  best  of  them  are  as 
earnest  about  right  as  themselves,  only  with  a 
different  conception  as  to  what  is  right.  It  is 
always  well  to  try  to  understand  the  other  man's 
point  of  view. 


TYNDALE'S  VERSION.  91 

VI. 

In  trying  to  think  ourselves  into  the  position  of 
Tyndale's  opponents  it  is  necessary  first  to  realize 
that  in  the  foreground  of  religious  thought  at  the 
time  was  not  "  the  open  Bible  "  but  "  the  teaching 
Church,"  which  held  the  Bible  in  trust  for  the 
edifying  of  her  people.  The  Church  was  the 
sacred  thing,  the  Divine  Society  founded  by  her 
Lord,  coming  down  through  all  the  ages,  one 
body,  the  centre  of  unity,  the  dispenser  of  the 
Holy  Sacraments,  the  teacher  of  the  people  in 
their  holy  faith.  She  was  ever  to  keep  before 
them  the  Atonement  of  Christ  in  the  great  service 
of  the  Mass.  She  was  to  give  the  appointed  Scrip- 
ture portions  in  the  Psalms  and  Sunday  Gospels. 
Thus  had  she  nourished  religious  life  in  the  past 
ages  when  men  never  thought  of  an  open  Bible  and 
were  too  ignorant  to  use  one  even  if  they  had  it. 
That  Church  with  all  her  faults  was  still  the  cen- 
tral fact  and  any  disturbing  of  her  foundations 
would  be  fatal  to  religion. 

Such  was  the  attitude  of  English  Churchmen  to 
Church  and  Bible  in  pre-Reformation  days.  Now 
the  great  Reformation  movement  was  arriving. 
It  was  the  result  of  long  growing  causes  and  ten- 
dencies in  the  past  in  which  the  Wycliffe  Bible  and 
the  Renaissance  movement  had  doubtless  a  large 
share  n  No  one  man  originates  such  movements. 


92  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

They  "  arrive  "  in  course  of  time  in  the  Provi- 
dence of  God.  It  is  foolish  to  speak  of  Luther  as 
the  author  of  the  Reformation  in  Germany.  It 
is  a  petty  sneer  of  Roman  Catholics  that  the  Ref- 
ormation in  England  was  the  result  of  the  shame- 
ful amours  of  Henry  VIII.  Henry  had  his  part 
in  bringing  about  the  Reformation  as  Pontius 
Pilate  had  in  bringing  about  the  Atonement.  The 
great  flood  of  new  tendency  was  increasing  its 
pressure  all  over  Europe  and  in  England  Henry 
just  loosed,  as  it  were,  the  floodgates  and  let  the 
flood  go  through.  At  any  rate  it  was  going 
through.  In  God's  good  time  men  were  going 
beyond  the  trammels  and  leading  strings  of  child- 
hood. They  were  ready  for  a  fuller  Bible.  They 
had  learned  to  think.  They  could  see  the  corrup- 
tions of  the  Church.  And  now  it  depended  on  the 
action  of  the  Church  whether  there  should  come  a 
Reformation  or  a  Revolution. 


VII. 

It  was  a  critical  time.  Reform  was  "  in  the  air." 
But  there  were  two  types  of  the  men  who  desired 
reform.  One  type  represented  by  Sir  Thomas 
More  and  Erasmus  and  Fisher,  bishop  of  Roches- 
ter, and  Colet,  the  Dean  of  St.  Paul's.  They 
loved  and  reverenced  the  Church  and  sought  wise, 


TYNDALE'S  VERSION.  93 

conservative  reform.  They  deeply  dreaded  what 
seemed  to  them  the  reckless  movements  into  which 
Lutheranism  was  growing,  which  tended,  as  they 
believed,  to  undermining  authority  and  alienating 
men,  not  merely  from  the  Papacy  but  from  the 
organized  Church  itself  and  its  ordained  ministry. 
They  did  not,  in  theory  at  least,  oppose  an  English 
Bible  provided  it  was  issued  under  proper  safe- 
guards. Erasmus,  who  gave  the  Church  his  New 
Testament  in  Greek,  to  the  deep  satisfaction  of  the 
English  Bishops,  wished  also  for  a  Bible  in  the 
language  of  the  people,  "  that  the  husbandman 
might  sing  it  at  his  plough  and  the  weaver  at  his 
shuttle.1  Sir  Thomas  More,  the  sternest  of  Tyn- 
dale's  opponents,  professed  the  same  sentiment, 
but  this  translation,  he  insists,  must  be  made  by 
Catholic-minded  men  (i.  e.y  loyal  Churchmen) 
and  at  a  less  disturbed  time  and  under  proper 
Church  authority,  certainly  not  by  private,  un- 
authorized translators.  Whether  we  agree  with 
them  or  not  it  is  surely  possible  at  least  to  appre- 
ciate their  position  and  perhaps  even  to  believe 
that  such  men  would  be  the  wisest  type  of  Reform- 
ers provided  they  could  accomplish  their  purpose. 
At  the  same  time  one  cannot  help  feeling  that  in 
the  general  attitude  of  Churchmen  in  their  day 
there  might  be  very  considerable  waiting  for  that 
English  Bible. 

1  Preface  to  his  Greek  Testament. 


94  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

The  other  type  of  Reformers  were  such  men  as 
Tyndale  and  Frith  and  Barnes  and  their  friends, 
who  in  their  holy  zeal  felt  that  the  Bible  had  been 
kept  back  too  long  and  were  indignant  with  the 
Church  who  had  failed  in  her  duty.  They  were 
good  and  earnest  men  seeking  the  truth.  The 
Church  met  their  efforts  with  haughty  intolerance. 
Naturally  they  felt  it.  It  is  the  sad  Nemesis  of  an 
unfaithful  Church  that  her  earnest  sons  should 
attempt  reform  in  an  impatient  and  somewhat  hos- 
tile spirit.  So  it  was  with  Wycliffe.  So  it  was  with 
Luther.  So  it  was  now,  though  in  lesser  degree, 
with  Tyndale  and  his  friends.  Not  only  did  they 
attack  the  corruptions  of  the  Church,  but  their  zeal 
carried  them  on  to  the  undermining  of  its  au- 
thority. Their  controversial  works  caused  much 
offence.  Some  of  their  religious  teaching  was  con- 
demned as  heretical.  Churchmen  also  remem- 
bered bitterly  that  in  their  time  of  peril  when  King 
Henry  was  trying  to  bend  the  Church  of  England 
to  his  wicked  will,  his  favorite  book  was  Tyndale's 
"  Obedience  of  a  Christian  Man,"  which  pro- 
claimed the  right  divine  of  Kings  over  all  and 
asserted  that  the  Bishops  had  little  or  no  right  to 
obedience.  It  is  easy  to  understand  how  such 
things  should  prejudice  Tyndale's  new  Bible,  all 
the  more  so  that  that  Bible  was  annotated  with 
controversial  notes  which  were  sometimes  painful 
reading  for  loyal  Churchmen. 


TYNDALE'S  VERSION.  95 

All  this  must  be  considered  by  the  impartial 
reader  who  desires  to  understand  fairly  the  posi- 
tion. He  must  remember  that  it  was  four  centu- 
ries ago.  Toleration  is  a  growth  of  later  days. 
Though  Tyndale  and  his  friends  were  in  some 
degree  to  blame  the  whole  story  is  a  sorrowful 
episode  in  the  history  of  the  Church  of  England. 
Here  was  one  of  her  sons  estranged  by  her  faults 
and  yet  withal  no  self-seeking  demagogue  but  a 
humble,  modest  man,  full  of  zeal  for  God's  truth, 
such  an  one  surely  as  might  have  been  won  back  to 
his  loyalty  by  wise,  sympathetic  bishops  who 
should  share  with  him  in  his  longing  for  the 
highest  good  of  the  people.  He  openly  declared 
that  he  had  no  wish  to  form  a  sect,  that  he  would 
withdraw  his  book  if  even  a  worse  one  were  set 
forth  by  authority.  But  it  was  an  unsympathetic 
age.  It  had  not  been  softened  as  in  our  day  by 
400  years  of  an  open  Bible.  So  the  opposition 
remained. 

VIII. 

The  Bishops  made  a  determined  attempt  to  stop 
the  circulation  of  Tyndale's  New  Testament.  It 
was  no  easy  task.  Wycliff e's  Testaments  had  been 
troublesome  enough,  even  though  it  took  months 
to  finish  a  single  copy  and  the  cost  was  in  a  great 
measure  prohibitive.     But  here  were  books  pour- 


96  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

ing  into  the  country  capable  of  being  produced  at 
the  rate  of  hundreds  per  day,  and  at  a  price  within 
the  reach  of  all.  Vigorous  measures  indeed 
would  be  necessary  now! 

The  warning  of  Cochlaeus  had  set  them  on 
their  guard,  and  every  port  was  carefully  watched 
by  officers  appointed  for  the  purpose.  Thousands 
of  copies  were  thus  seized  in  their  various  dis- 
guises, and  were  burned  with  solemn  ceremony  at 
the  old  cross  of  St.  Paul's,  as  "  a  burnt-offering 
most  pleasing  to  Almighty  God;"1  and  still 
other  thousands  supplied  their  place.2  Tyndale 
was  but  little  discouraged  at  their  efforts,  for  he 
knew  that  the  printing  press  could  defy  them  all. 
44  In  burning  the  book,"  he  says,  "  they  did  none 
other  thing  than  I  looked  for ;  no  more  shall  they 
do  if  they  burn  me  also,  if  it  be  God's  will  that  it 
should  be  so." 

It  was  quite  clear  that  they  could  not  hinder  the 
entrance  of  the  book  into  England.  And  then  a 
brilliant  thought  occurred  to  the  Bishop  of  Lon- 
don. He  sought  out  Augustine  Pakington,  a  mer- 
chant trading  to  Antwerp,  and  asked  his  opinion 
about  the  buying  up  of  all  the  copies  across  the 
water. 

"  My  lord,"   replied    Pakington    who  was   a 


1  Cardinal  Campeggio's  letter  to  Wolsey. 

2  About  15,000  of  his  first  New  Testament  were  issued  withm 
four  years. 


TYNDALE'S  VERSION.  97 

secret  friend  of  Tyndale,  "  if  it  be  your  pleasure 
I  could  do  in  this  matter  probably  more  than  any 
merchant  in  England;  so  if  it  be  your  lordship's 
pleasure  to  pay  for  them — for  I  must  disburse 
money  for  them — I  will  insure  you  to  have  every 
book  that  remains  unsold." 

"  '  Gentle  Master  Pakington,'  said  the  bishop, 
deemyng  that  he  hadde  God  by  the  toe,  whanne 
in  truthe  he  hadde,  as  after  he  thought,  the  devyl 
by  the  fiste,1  '  do  your  diligence  and  get  them 
for  me,  and  I  will  gladly  give  you  whatever  they 
may  cost,  for  the  books  are  naughty,  and  I  intend 
surely  to  destroy  them  all,  and  to  burn  them  at 
Paul's  Cross.'  " 

A  few  weeks  later  Pakington  sought  the  trans* 
lator,  whose  funds  he  knew  were  at  a  low  ebb. 

"  Master  Tyndale,"  he  said,  "  I  have  found  you 
a  good  purchaser  for  your  books." 

"  Who  is  he?  "  asked  Tyndale. 

"  My  lord  of  London." 

"  But  if  the  bishop  wants  the  books  it  must  be 
only  to  burn  them." 

"  Well,"  was  the  reply,  "  what  of  that?  The 
bishop  will  burn  them  anyhow,  and  it  is  best  that 
you  should  have  the  money  for  the  enabling  you 
to  imprint  others  instead." 

And  so  the  bargain  was  made.     "  The  bishop 

1 "  Hailed    Chronicle." 


98  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

had  the  books,  Pakington  had  the  thanks,  and 
Tyndale  had  the  money." 

"  I  am  the  gladder,"  quoth  Tyndale,  "  for  these 
two  benefits  shall  come  thereof.  I  shall  get  money 
to  bring  myself  out  of  debt,  and  the  whole  world 
will  cry  out  against  the  burning  of  God's  Word, 
and  the  overplus  of  the  money  that  shall  remain 
with  me  shall  make  me  more  studious  to  correct 
the  said  New  Testament,  and  so  newly  to  imprint 
the  same  once  again,  and  I  trust  the  second  will 
be  much  better  than  ever  was  the  first." 

The  Chronicle  *  which  relates  the  story  goes  on 
to  tell  that — "  After  this  Tyndale  corrected  the 
same  Testaments  again,  and  caused,  them  to  be 
newly  imprinted,  so  that  they  came  thick  and 
threefold  into  England.  The  bishop  sent  for 
Pakington  again,  and  asked  how  the  Testaments 
were  still  so  abundant.  '  My  lord,'  replied  the 
merchant,  *  it  were  best  for  your  lordship  to  buy 
up  the  stamps  too  by  the  which  they  are  im- 
printed.' " 

It  is  with  evident  enjoyment  that  the  old  chron- 
icler presents  to  us  another  scene  as  a  sequel  to 
the  story.  A  prisoner,  a  suspected  heretic  named 
Constantine,  was  being  tried  a  few  months  later 
before  Sir  Thomas  More.  "  Now  Constantine," 
said  the  judge,  "  I  would  have  thee  to  be  plain 
with  me  in  one  thing  that  I  shall  ask,  and  I  prom- 

1(i  Hailed   Chronicle." 


TYNDALE'S  VERSION.  99 

ise  thee  I  will  show  thee  favor  in  all  other  things 
whereof  thou  art  accused.  There  are  beyond  the 
sea  Tyndale,  Joye,  and  a  great  many  of  you;  I 
know  they  cannot  live  without  help.  There  must 
be  some  that  help  and  succor  them  with  money, 
and  thou,  being  one  of  them,  hadst  thy  part  there- 
of, and  therefore  knowest  from  whence  it  came. 
I  pray  thee,  tell  me  who  be  they  that  help  them 
thus." 

"  My  lord,"  quoth  Constantine,  "  I  will  tell 
thee  truly — it  is  the  Bishop  of  London  that  hath 
holpen  us,  for  he  hath  bestowed  among  us  a  great 
deal  of  money  upon  New  Testaments  to  burn 
them,  and  that  hath  been  our  chief  succor  and 
comfort." 

"  Now  by  my  troth,"  quoth  Sir  Thomas  More, 
"  I  think  even  the  same,  for  I  told  the  bishop  thus 
much  before  he  went  about  it," 

IX. 

The  opponents  of  the  book  began  at  last  to  see 
that  a  printed  Testament  continually  being  pro- 
duced was  quite  beyond  their  power  to  destroy. 
Bishop  Tonstal  profited  by  his  lesson,  and  instead 
of  buying  and  burning  the  book  any  longer,  he 
preached  a  famous  sermon  at  Paul's  Cross, 
declaring  its  "  naughtiness,"  and  asserting  that  he 
himself  had  found  in  it  more  than  two  thousand 


100  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

errors; x  and  at  the  close  of  his  sermon  he  hurled 
the  copy  which  he  held  into  a  great  fire  that  blazed 
before  him.  Sir  Thomas  More,  whose  influence 
was  so  deservedly  great  in  England,  followed  up 
the  attack.  "  To  study  to  find  errors  in  Tyndale's 
book,"  he  said,  "  were  like  studying  to  find  water 
in  the  sea."  It  was  even  too  bad  for  revising  and 
amending,  '  for  it  is  easier  to  make  a  web  of  new 
cloth  than  it  is  to  sew  up  every  hole  in  a  net."  2 
Tyndale  indignantly  replied  to  this  attack;  and  cer- 
tainly his  opponent  does  not  show  to  advantage  in 
the  argument,  his  sweeping  charge  narrowing 
itself  down  at  the  last  to  the  mistranslation  of 
half  a  dozen  words. 

Such  attacks,  made  from  different  pulpits 
throughout  the  land,  were  much  more  effective 
than  the  previous  stupid  measures  adopted  against 
the  Bible,  chiefly  because  the  people  could  seldom 
hear  the  refutation.  But  this  was  not  always  so. 
Tyndale  had  many  sympathizers  in  the  Church 
who  wanted  the  open  Bible  in  England,  and  they 
as  well  as  Tyndale  defended  the  book  when  they 
could,  and  generally  with  success. 

1 "  There  is  not  so  much  as  one  i  therein,"  says  Tyndale,  "  if 
it  lack  the  tittle  over  its  head,  but  they  have  noted  and  number  it 
to  the  ignorant  people  for  a  heresy." 

2  More's  animus  against  Tyndale  is  amusingly  shown  in  his 
description  of  the  translation  of  Jonah — "  Jonas  made  out  by 
Tyndale — a  book  that  whoso  delyte  therein  shall  stande  in  peril 
that  Jonas  was  never  so  swallowed  up  by  the  whale  as  by  the 
delyte  of  that  booke  a  mannes  soul  may  be  swallowed  up  by  the 
Devyl  that  he  shall  never  have  the  grace  to  get  out  again." 


TYNDALE'S  VERSION.  101 

In  1529  Latimer  had  preached  at  Cambridge 
his  celebrated  sermons  "  On  the  Card,"  which 
attracted  a  good  deal  of  attention,  arguing  in 
favor  of  the  translation  and  universal  reading  of 
Holy  Scripture.  The  friars  were  enraged,  and  the 
more  so  as  his  reasoning  was  so  difficult  to  answer. 
At  length  they  selected  a  champion,  Friar  Buck- 
ingham; and  certainly,  if  he  may  be  taken  as  a 
type  of  the  friars  of  his  day,  the  Reformers' 
sneers  at  their  ignorance  were  not  without 
grounds.1  A  Sunday  was  fixed  on  which  he  was 
to  demolish  the  arguments  of  Latimer,  and  on  the 
appointed  day  the  people  assembled,  and  a  sermon 
against  Bible  translation  was  preached  which  to  us 
now  must  read  more  like  jest  than  sober  argument. 

11  Thus,"  asked  the  preacher  with  a  triumphant 
smile,  "  where  Scripture  saith  no  man  that  layeth 
his  hand  to  the  plough  and  looketh  back  is  fit  for 
the  kingdom  of  God,  will  not  the  ploughman 
when  he  readeth  these  words  be  apt  forthwith  to 
cease  from  his  plough,  and  then  where  will  be  the 
sowing  and  the  harvest?  Likewise  also  whereas 
the  baker  readeth,  '  A  little  leaven  leaveneth  the 
whole  lump,'  will  he  not  be  forthwith  too  sparing 
in  the  use  of  leaven,  to  the  great  injury  of  our 

luThey  said  there  was  a  new  language  discovered  called 
Greek,  of  which  people  should  beware,  since  it  was  that  which 
produced  all  the  heresies;  that  in  this  language  was  come  forth 
the  New  Testament,  which  was  full  of  thorns  and  briars;  that 
there  was  another  new  language  too,  called  Hebrew,  and  they 
who  learned  it  were  turned  Hebrews." — Hody,  De  Textibus  BibL 


102  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

health.  And  so  also  when  the  simple  man  reads 
the  words,  '  If  thine  eye  offend  thee  pluck  it  out 
and  cast  it  from  thee/  incontinent  he  will  pluck 
out  his  eyes,  and  so  the  whole  realm  will  be  full 
of  blind  men,  to  the  great  decay  of  the  nation  and 
the  manifest  loss  of  the  King's  grace.  And  thus 
by  reading  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  will  the  whole 
realm  come  into  confusion." 

The  next  Sunday  St.  Edward's  Church  was 
crowded  to  the  doors,  for  the  report  had  gone 
abroad  that  Latimer  was  to  reply  to  the  Grey 
Friar's  sermon.  At  the  close  of  the  prayers  the 
old  man  ascended  the  pulpit,  and  amid  breathless 
silence  the  sermon  began — -such  a  crushing,  scath- 
ing rebuke  as  Buckingham  and  his  party  never 
recovered  from  in  Cambridge.  One  by  one  the 
arguments  were  ridiculed  as  too  foolish  for  a 
really  serious  reply.  "  Only  children  and  fools," 
he  said,  "  fail  to  distinguish  between  the  figurative 
and  the  real  meanings  of  language — between  the 
image  which  is  used  and  the  thing  which  that 
image  is  intended  to  represent.  For  example,"  he 
continued,  with  a  withering  glance  at  his  oppo- 
nent, who  sat  before  the  pulpit,  "  if  we  paint  a  fox 
preaching  in  a  friar's  hood,  nobody  imagines  that 
a  fox  is  meant,  but  that  craft  and  hypocrisy  are 
described,  which  so  often  are  found  disguised  in 
that  garb." 

It  was  evident,  too,  that  many  of  the  people 


TYNDALE'S  VERSION.  103 

sympathized  with  the  Reformers  in  such  contests. 
Day  by  day  it  became  clearer  now  that  the  tide  of 
public  opinion  in  England  was  setting  too  strongly 
to  be  resisted  in  favour  of  a  "  People's  Bible."  In 
spite  of  all  opposition  the  book  was  being  every- 
where talked  about  and  read.  "  It  passeth  my 
power,"  writes  Bishop  Nikke,  complaining  to  the 
Primate,  "  it  passeth  my  power,  or  that  of  any 
spiritual  man,  to  hinder  it  now."  There  was  no 
room  for  questioning  about  it.  The  path  of  the 
Bible  was  open  at  last.  Nor  king  nor  bishop  could 
stay  its  progress  now.  Over  England's  long  night 
of  error  and  superstition  God  had  said,  "  Let 
there  be  light !  "  and  there  was  light. 


X. 

But  the  Light-bringer  himself  did  not  see  that 
day.  For  weary  years  he  had  laboured  for  it,  a 
worn,  poverty-stricken  exile  in  a  far  away  German 
town,  and  now  when  it  came  his  heroic  life  was 
over — the  prison  and  the  stake  had  done  their 
work.  His  enemies  were  many  and  powerful  in 
England,  and  Vaughan,  the  royal  envoy,  had  been 
instructed  to  persuade  him  to  return.  But  Tyn- 
dale  refused  to  go.  "  Whatever  promises  of 
safety  may  be  made,"  he  said,  "  the  king  would 
never  be  able  to  protect  me  from  the  bishops,  who 


104  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

believe  that  no  faith  should  be  kept  with  heretics." 
It  is  only  fair  to  say  that  there  is  not  the  slightest 
evidence  that  the  English  bishops  had  anything 
to  do  with  Tyndale's  death  in  Germany.  The 
traitor  by  whose  means  he  was  taken  was  a  villain 
named  Phillips,  a  clergyman  of  very  plausible 
manners,  who  contrived  to  win  the  confidence  of 
the  unsuspecting  exile,  "  for  Tyndale  was  simple 
and  inexpert  in  the  wily  subtleties  of  the  world." 
He  confided  in  Phillips  as  a  friend,  lent  him 
money  when  he  wanted  it  and  utterly  refused  to 
listen  to  his  landlord's  suspicions  about  the  man. 
At  length,  their  plans  being  ripe,  Tyndale  was 
enticed  some  distance  from  his  house,  seized  by 
Phillips'  lurking  assistants,  and  hurried  to  the  dun- 
geons of  the  Castle  of  Vilvorden.  It  is  pitiful  to 
read  of  the  poor  prisoner  there,  in  his  cold  and 
misery  and  rags,  writing  to  the  governor  to  beg 
"  your  lordship,  and  that  by  the  Lord  Jesus,  that 
if  I  am  to  remain  here  during  the  winter,  you  will 
request  the  procureur  to  be  kind  enough  to  send 
me  from  my  goods  which  he  has  in  his  possession 
a  warmer  cap,  for  I  suffer  extremely  from  a  per^ 
petual  catarrh,  which  is  much  increased  by  this 
cell.  A  warmer  coat  also,  for  that  which  I  have 
is  very  thin;  also  a  piece  of  cloth  to  patch  my  leg- 
gings— my  shirts  too  are  worn  out.  .  .  .  Also 
that  he  would  suffer  me  to  have  my  Hebrew  Bible 
and  Grammar  and  Dictionary." 


TYNDALE'S  VERSION.  105 

There  was  no  hope  of  escape  from  the  first. 
He  knew  that  the  clerical  influence  in  England  was 
too  strong  against  him  to  hope  for  any  help  in  that 
quarter.  Long  ago  he  had  said  with  foreboding, 
"  If  they  burn  me  also,  they  shall  do  none  other 
thing  than  I  look  for,"  and  now  his  foreboding 
was  to  be  realized.  On  Friday  the  6th  October, 
1536,  he  was  strangled  at  the  stake  and  then 
burned  to  ashes,  fervently  praying  with  his  last 
words,  "  Lord,  open  the  King  of  England's  eyes," 
a  prayer  which  was  nearer  to  its  answer  than  the 
heroic  martyr  deemed. 

There  is  no  grander  life  in  the  whole  annals  of 
the  Reformation  than  that  of  William  Tyndale — 
none  which  comes  nearer  in  its  beautiful  self- 
forgetfulness  to  His  who  "  laid  down  His  life  for 
His  sheep."  Many  a  man  has  suffered  in  order 
that  a  great  cause  might  conquer  by  means  of  him- 
self. No  such  thought  sullied  the  self-devotion  of 
Tyndale.  He  issued  his  earlier  editions  of  the 
New  Testament  without  a  name,  "  following  the 
counsel  of  Christ  which  exhorteth  men  to  do  their 
good  deeds  secretly."  "  I  assure  you,"  said  he  to 
Vaughan,  the  envoy  of  the  king,  "  if  it  would 
stand  with  the  king's  most  gracious  pleasure  to 
grant  a  translation  of  the  Scripture  to  be  put  forth 
among  his  people  like  as  it  is  put  forth  among  the 
subjects  of  the  emperor  here,  be  it  the  translation 
of  whatsoever  person  he  pleases,  I  shall  imme- 


106  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

diateiy  make  faithful  promises  never  to  write 
more  nor  abide  two  days  in  these  parts  after  the 
same,  but  immediately  repair  unto  his  realm,  and 
there  humbly  submit  myself  at  the  feet  of  his  royal 
majesty,  offering  my  body  to  suffer  what  pain  or 
torture,  yea,  what  death  his  grace  wills,  so  that 
this  be  obtained." 

Poverty  and  distress  and  misrepresentation 
were  his  constant  lot;  imprisonment  and  death 
were  ever  staring  him  in  the  face;  but  "  none  of 
these  things  moved  him,  neither  counted  he  his 
life  dear  unto  him  "  for  the  accomplishment  of 
the  work  which  God  had  set  him. 

No  higher  honour  could  be  given  to  any  man 
than  such  a  work  to  accomplish,  and  among  all  the 
heroes  of  the  Reformation  none  worthier  of  that 
honour  could  be  found  than  William  Tyndale. 


XL 

And  now  we  have  to  tell  of  the  translation 
itself.  As  we  have  seen  already,  all  the  earlier 
English  versions  were  but  translations  of  a  trans- 
lation, being  derived  from  the  Vulgate  or  older 
Latin  versions.  Tyndale  for  the  first  time  goes 
back  to  the  original  Hebrew  and  Greek,1  though 

1  See  Diagram  facing  the  title-page.  Besides  Erasmus*  Greek 
Testament,  Tyndale  had  also  before  him  the  Latin  Vulgate  and 
Erasmus'  Latin  translation  of  the  New  Testament  It  is  said 
too  that  he  used  Luther's  German  Bible. 


TYNDALE'S  VERSION.  107 

the  manuscripts  accessible  in  his  time  were  not  of 
much  authority  as  compared  with  those  used  by 
our  recent  revisers. 

And  not  only  did  he  go  back  to  the  original 
languages  seeking  for  the  truth,  but  he  embodied 
that  truth  when  found  in  so  noble  a  translation 
that  it  has  been  but  little  improved  on  even  to  the 
present  day.  Every  succeeding  version  is  in 
reality  little  more  than  a  revision  of  Tyndale's; 
even  our  present  Authorized  Version  owes  to  him 
chiefly  the  ease  and  beauty  for  which  it  is  so 
admired.  "  The  peculiar  genius,"  says  Mr. 
Froude,  "  which  breathes  through  the  English 
Bible,  the  mingled  tenderness  and  majesty,  the 
Saxon  simplicity,  the  grandeur,  unequalled,  unap- 
proached  in  the  attempted  improvements  of  mod- 
ern scholars — all  are  here,  and  bear  the  impress 
of  the  mind  of  one  man,  and  that  man  William 
Tyndale." 

The  New  Testament  was  the  work  to  which  he 
chiefly  devoted  himself,  bringing  out  edition  after 
edition  as  he  saw  anything  to  be  improved.  Of 
the  Old  Testament  he  translated  only  the  Penta- 
teuch, the  Historical  Books,  and  part  of  the 
Prophets. 

The  margin  contains  a  running  comment  on  the 
text,  and  some  of  the  notes  rather  amusingly 
exhibit  his  strong  anti-Papal  and  anti-clerical  feel- 
ing.    He  has  a  grim  jest  in  the  margin  of  Exod. 


108  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

xxxii.  35,  "  The  Pope's  bull  slayeth  more  than 
Aaron's  calf."  On  Lev.  xxi.  5  he  comments,  "  Of 
the  heathen  priests,  then,  our  prelates  took  the 
example  of  their  bald  pates;"  and  where  the 
account  is  given,  Exod.  xxxvi.  5,  &c,  of  the  for- 
bidding the  people  to  bring  any  more  offerings  for 
the  building  of  the  tabernacle,  he  has  this  note  on 
the  margin,  "  When  will  the  Pope  say  Hoo! 
(hold!)  and  forbid  an  offering  for  the  building 
of  St.  Peter's  Church  ?  And  when  will  our  spirit- 
uality say  Hoo  I  and  forbid  to  give  them  more 
land?    Never  until  they  have  all." 

Many  of  his  quaint  expressions  have  been 
altered  in  succeeding  versions,  not  always,  per- 
haps, for  the  better.  Here  are  a  few  as  specimens 
taken  almost  entirely  from  the  New  Testament: 

Gen.  xxxix.  2 — "  And  the  Lorde  was  with 
Ioseph,  and  he  was  a  luckie  felowe." 

Matt.  xxvi.  30 — "  When  they  had  said  grace." 

Mark  vi.  27 — "  He  sent  forthe  the  hangman." 

Rev.  i.  10 — "  I  was  in  the  Sprete  on  a  Son- 
daye." 

Matt,  xxvii.  62 — "  The  daye  that  foloweth 
Good  Fridaye." 

1  Cor.  xvi.  8 — "  I  will  tarry  at  Ephesus  til  Wit- 
sontyde." 

Acts  xiii.  15 — "  The  rulers  of  the  synagogue 
sent  to  them  after  the  lecture,  saying,  If  ye  have 
any  sermon  to  exhort  the  people,  say  on." 


<*  <*#  r"  ~*  v  rr  v~ 


-    jrj  5*  -~  *s>  <?  h  ^  *r  £*  p  **  «o  wSv  K  *i  °*  S> 


TYNDALE'S  VERSION.  109 

Acts  xiv.  13 — "  Brought  oxen  and  garlandes  to 
the  churche  porche." 

1  Peter  v.  3 — "  Be  not  as  lordes  over  the  par- 
rishes." 

Heb.  xii.  16 — "  Which  for  one  breakfast  sold 
his  birthright." 

Matt.  iv.  24 — "  Holden  of  divers  diseases  and 
gripinges." 

Matt.  vi.  7 — "  When  ye  pray,  bable  not 
moche." 

Matt.  xv.  27 — "  The  whelpes  eat  of  the 
crommes." 

Mark  xii.  2 — "  He  sent  to  the  tenauntes  a  ser- 
vant." 

Luke  xx.  9 — "  He  lett  it  forthe  to  fermers." 

The  following  passage  from  Luke  ii.  I  have 
selected  as  a  characteristic  specimen  of  Tyndale, 
though  perhaps  not  showing  as  well  as  other  pas- 
sages would  the  resemblance  to  our  Authorized 
Version.  Opposite  is  printed  the  corresponding 
portion  in  Wycliffe's  Testament,  to  show  the 
growth  of  the  English  language  in  the  meantime: 


110  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

Specimen  from  JVyclife. 


(Luke  ii.  i-ii.) 

f  brsotbe  it  was  bon  in  tbo  bases,  a 
maunbement  went  out  fro  Caesar  august 
tbat  al  tbe  worlb  scbulbe  be  biscru^eb. 
£bls  first  biscrusinge  was  maab  of  C^ne 
iustlce  of  Ctr^e,  anb  alle  men  wenten  tbat 
tbei  scbulbe  make  profesciounecb  bp  bim* 
self  in  to  bis  cite,  £otblt>  anb  3osepb 
stigbebe  up  fro  Galilee  of  tbe  cite  of 
1Ra3aretb  in  to  3ubet  in  to  a  cite  of  ©auitb 
tbat  is  clepib  Bebleem,  for  tbat  be  was 
of  tbo  bouse  anb  mesne  of  2)auitb,  tbat 
be  scbulbe  fenowlecbe  wltb  fiDars  witb 
cbilb  spousib  w$f  to  b^m. 

Sotbls  it  was  bon  wbanne  tbei  weren 
tbere  tbe  bases  weren  fulfilleb  tbat  sbe 
scbulbe  bere  cbilb.  Hnb  sbe  cbilbibe  ber 
firste  born  sone  anb  wlappibe  b^m  in 
clotbis  anb  putteb  b$m  in  a  craccbe,  for 
tber  was  not  place  to  bgm  in  tbe  comgn 
stable. 


TYNDALE'S  VERSION.  Ill 

Specimen  from  Tyndale. 


(Luke  ii.  i-n.) 

Dit  foloweo  in  tboose  oases  tbat  tbere 
wente  oute  acommaunomentfromBuguste 
tbe  gmperour  tbat  all  tbe  woorloe  sbuloe 
be  palueb.  Gbis  tanmge  was  first  ere* 
cuteo  wben  Sprenus  was  leftenaunt  in 
Stria.  Sno  everp.  man  wente  in  to 
bis  awne  sbire  toune  tbere  to  be  tareo. 
Bno  3osepb  also  ascenoeb  from  <5alile 
oute  of  a  cite  calleo  1Ra3aretb,  unto 
3ewrp,  into  a  cite  of  Bapio  wbicb  is 
calleo  Betbleem,  because  be  was  of  tbe 
bousse  ano  linage  of  2>apio,  to  be  tareo 
witb  flDarp.  bis  weooeb  wpfe,  wbicb  was 
witb  cbiloe*  Bno  it  fortuneo  wbile  tbep 
tbere  were  ber  tpme  was  come  tbat  sbe 
sbuloe  be  belppereo.  Sno  sbe  brougbt 
fortbe  ber  first  begotten  sonne  ano 
wrappeb  bpm  in  swaoWpnge  clotbes,  ano 
lapeo  bpm  in  a  manger  be  cause  tbere  was 
no  roume  for  tbem  witbin  in  tbe  bostrep, 


CHAPTER    VII. 

THE  BIBLE  AFTER  TYNDALE's  DAYS. 

I.  Three   Years   After.      II.  Twenty  Years   After.      III.  Fifty 
Years  More  gone  by. 

11  Lord,  open  the  King  of  England's  eyes !  " 
Pity  that  William  Tyndale,  as  he  gasped  forth 
his  dying  prayer,  could  not  have  lifted  even  a 
little  way  the  veil  that  hid  from  him  the  future  of 
England. 

I. 

Three  Years  After. 

In  every  parish  church  stands  an  English  Bible, 
whose  frontispiece  alone  is  sufficient  to  tell  of  the 
marvelous  change  that  has  taken  place  in  the 
meantime. 

The  design  is  by  Holbein.  In  the  first  com- 
partment the  Almighty  is  seen  in  the  clouds  with 
outstretched  arms.  Two  scrolls  proceed  out  of 
His  mouth  to  the  right  and  to  the  left.  On  the 
former  is  the  phrase,  "  The  word  which  goeth 
forth  from  me  shall  not  return  to  me  empty,  but 
shall  accomplish  whatsoever  I  will  have  done." 

112 


THE  BIBLE  AFTER  TYNDALE'S  DAYS.     113 

The  other  is  addressed  to  King  Henry,  who  is 
kneeling  in  the  distance  bareheaded,  with  his 
crown  lying  at  his  feet — "  I  have  found  me  a  man 
after  mine  own  heart,  who  shall  fulfil  all  my  will." 
Henry  answers,  "  Thy  word  is  a  lantern  unto  mv 
feet." 

Immediately  below  is  the  King,  seated  on  his 
throne,  holding  in  each  hand  a  book,  on  which  is 
written  "  The  Word  of  God."  This  he  is  giving 
to  Cranmer  and  another  bishop,  who,  with  a 
group  of  priests,  are  on  the  right  of  the  picture, 
saying,  "Take  this  and  teach;"  the  other,  on  the 
opposite  side,  he  holds  out  to  Cromwell  and  the 
lay  peers,  and  the  words  are,  "I  make  a  decree 
that  in  all  my  kingdom  men  shall  tremble  and  fear 
before  the  Living  God;"  while  a  third  scroll, 
falling  downward  over  his  feet,  speaks  alike  to 
peer  and  prelate — "Judge  righteous  judgment; 
turn  not  away  your  ear  from  the  prayer  of  any 
poor  man." 

In  the  third  compartment  Cranmer  and  Crom* 
well  are  distributing  the  Bibles  to  kneeling  priests 
and  laymen,  and  at  the  bottom  a  preacher  with  a 
benevolent  and  beautiful  face  is  addressing  a 
crowd  from  a  pulpit  in  the  open  air.  He  is  appar- 
ently commencing  his  sermon  with  the  words,  "  I 
exhort,  therefore,  that  first  of  all  supplications, 
prayers,  thanksgivings,  be  made  for  all  men,  for 
kings  " — and  at  the  word  "  kings  "  the  people  are 


114  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

shouting,  "  Vivat  Rex !  "  children  who  know  no 
Latin  lisping,  "  God  save  the  King!  "  while  at  the 
extreme  left  a  prisoner  at  a  jail  window  is  joining 
in  the  cry  of  delight  as  if  he  too  were  delivered 
from  a  worse  bondage.1 

This  was  the  so-called  "  Great  Bible  "  of 
1539,  the  first  English  "  Authorized  Version." 

It  was  indeed  a  marked  change  that  had  passed 
over  England.  The  Reformation  was  gaining 
ground  among  clergy  and  laity,  Henry  had  openly 
broken  with  the  Pope,  and  there  seemed  no  dispo- 
sition anywhere  to  oppose  the  desire  for  a  "  Peo- 
ple's Bible.'' 

But  the  opposition  to  William  Tyndale  still 
remained.  His  writings  had  already  been  pub- 
licly condemned,  and  the  men  who  had  condemned 
him  and  placed  a  ban  upon  his  works  were  re- 
solved that  his  Bible  should  never  be  the  Bible  of 
England. 

Yet  this  "  Great  Bible,"  the  Authorized  Ver- 
sion of  the  nation,  was  virtually  Tyndale's! 

This  is  how  it  came  about.  Already  in  these 
three  years  three  different  versions  had  appeared 
in  England.  Within  a  few  years  after  the  appear- 
ance of  Tyndale's  New  Testament  the  Church  of 
England  had  wakened  to  the  needs  of  the  time 
and  carried  in  Convocation,  1534,  a  petition  for 

1  This  description  is  taken  from  Mr.  Froude's  History  of  Eng- 
land, where,  however,  the  frontispiece  is  erroneously  said  to 
belong  to  an  edition  of  the  Coverdale  Bible. 


THE  BIBLE  AFTER  TYNDALE'S  DAYS.     115 

an  English  translation  of  the  Scriptures.  We  may 
well  believe  that  the  influence  of  Tyndale's  Ver- 
sion had  a  good  deal  to  do  with  this  improved  atti- 
tude. In  1535,  the  very  year  of  Tyndale's  impris- 
onment, came  the  Bible  *  of  Myles  Coverdale, 
afterwards  Bishop  of  Exeter,  the  man  who  after 
Tyndale  has  played  the  most  prominent  part  of 
any  in  the  history  of  the  English  Bible.  Cover- 
dale  was  a  man  of  very  different  stamp  from  his 
great  predecessor.  He  had  neither  his  ability  nor 
strength  of  character,  nor  was  he,  like  him,  fitted 
by  a  lifelong  study  for  his  task  as  a  translator,  and 
the  difference  comes  markedly  out  in  the  work  pro- 
duced by  each.  But  it  is  only  fair  to  say,  too,  that 
he  was  quite  conscious  of  his  defects,  that  he  did 
the  work  before  him  to  the  best  of  his  ability, 
11  seeking  it  not,  neither  desiring  it,"  but  feeling 

1  Sometimes  called  the  "  Treacle  Bible,"  from  its  rendering  of 
Jer.  viii.  22,  "  H0  tbete  TIO  tttacte  in  (Stleafc  ?  "  Here  are 
some  other  curious  expressions: — 

Gen.  viii.  n — "  The  dove  bare  an  olive  leafe  in  her  nebbe." 

Joshua  ii.  11 — "  Our  heart  had  fayled  us,  neither  is  there  good 

stomacke  in  any  manne." 
Judges  ix.  53 — "  And  brake  his  brain-panne." 
Job  v.  7 — "  It  is  man  that  is  born  to  misery  like  as  a  byrd  for 

to  flee." 
Acts  xi.  8 — "  Ther  widowes  were  not  looked  vpon  in  the  daylie 

handreaching." 

In  original  edition  Queen  Anne  is  referred  to  as  the  king's 
*  dearest  juste  wyfe  and  most  virtuous  princesse."  A  copy  now 
in  the  British  Museum  has  this  inscription,  but  "  Ane  "  is  changed 
to  Jane,  thus  JAne.  The  other  copies  have,  some  Ane,  some 
Jane,  while  some  actually  leave  the  space  blank,  as  if  the  editor 
were  unable  to  keep  pace  with  Henry's  rapid  change  of  wives. 


116  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

that  his  country  needed  it  done,  and  modestly 
regretting  that  no  better  man  was  there  to  do  it. 

Coverdale  was  a  man  of  sympathetic  nature  and 
fine  literary  instinct  and  the  attractive  English  of 
his  translation  has  considerably  influenced  the  lan- 
guage of  the  Authorized  Version.  His  Bible 
makes  no  pretence  to  be  an  original  translation; 
it  is  "  translated  out  of  Douche  and  Latin  into 
English,"  with  the  help  of  "  five  sundry  interpre- 
ters "  (i.  e.,  translators),  and  the  chief  of  these 
"  interpreters "  is  evidently  William  Tyndale, 
whom,  in  the  New  Testament  especially,  he  closely 
follows. 

The  following  year  (1537)  appeared  "Mat- 
thews' Bible."  x  which  was  really  prepared  by 
John  Rogers,  one  of  the  early  Reformers,  after- 
ward martyred  in  Queen  Mary's  reign.  His 
known  opinions  and  his  connection  with  Tyndale 
accounts  for  the  suppression  of  his  real  name  as 
likely  to  injure  the  circulation  of  the  book.  This 
work  was  Tyndale's  translation  pure  and  simple, 
all  but  the  latter  half  of  the  Old  Testament 
(which  is  taken,  with  some  alteration,  from 
Coverdale's  Bible)  ;  and  one  feels  pleased  for  the 
old  exile's  sake,  though  his  honor  was  given  to 
others,  that  Archbishop  Cranmer  should  "  like  it 
better  than  any  translation  heretofore  made,"  he 
44  would  rather  see  it  licensed  by  the  king  than  re- 

1  In  it  the  Song  of  Solomon  is  entitled   "  5olomOtt'6  JBalaDeg/' 


THE  BIBLE  AFTER  TYNDALE'S  DAYS.    117 

ceive  £1,000,"  and  "  if  they  waited  till  the  bishops 
should  set  forth  a  better  translation  they  would 
wait,"  he  thinks,  "  til  the  day  after  doomsday."  1 
It  is  not  easy  to  understand  how  it  escaped  detec- 
tion as  the  work  of  Tyndale,  especially  as  it  con- 
tained many  of  those  strong  anti-clerical  notes  by 
which  Tyndale's  version  gave  such  offence. 

Shortly  after  appeared  "  Taverner's  Bible,"  2 
which  was  little  more  than  an  edition  of  Mat- 
thews' with  its  more  violent  polemical  notes  toned 
down  or  omitted. 

None  of  these  versions  were  satisfactory. 
Coverdale's  was  but  a  second-hand  translation, 
and  Matthews'  was  only  in  part  derived  from  the 
originals,  besides  which  the  controversial  notes 
were  against  its  success. 

So  it  came  to  pass  that  the  Great  Bible  was  set 
on  foot  by  the  Church.  Archbishop  Cranmer  and 
some  of  the  chief  advisers  of  the  king  had  set 
their  hearts  on  having  a  translation  that  would  be 
really  worthy  of  its  position  as  a  National  Bible. 
Myles  Coverdale  was  selected  to  take  charge  of 

1 "  Cranmer's  Remains  and  Letters,"  p.  344.    Parker  Society. 

2  Little  is  known  of  him.  The  description  in  Fuller's  "  Church 
History,"  chap.  ii.  p.  459,  is  certainly  not  flattering — "  Surely 
preaching  must  have  run  very  low  if  it  be  true  what  I  read  that 
Mr.  Tavernour  of  Water  Eaton,  in  Oxfordshire,  gave  the 
scholars  a  sermon  at  St.  Mary's  with  his  gold  chain  about  his 
neck  and  his  sword  by  his  side,  beginning  with  these  words, 
"  Arriving  at  Mount  St.  Mary's  in  the  stony  age  where  I  now 
stand,  I  have  brought  you  some  fine  biscuits  baked  in  the  oven  of 
charity  and  carefully  conserved  for  the  chickens  of  the  Church, 
the  sparrows  of  the  Spirit,  the  sweet  swallows  of  salvation." 


118  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

the  work,  and  he  proceeded  to  Paris  with  the 
king's  printer,  that  the  book  might  be  brought  out 
in  the  best  possible  style.  But  the  Inquisitor- 
General  got  notice  of  the  project,  and  the  result 
was  a  repetition  of  the  episode  of  Tyndale  at 
Cologne,  only  that  Coverdale  fared  better  than 
his  great  predecessor,  for  though  his  Bibles  were 
all  seized  by  the  "  Lieutenant  Criminall,"  he  car- 
ried off  the  printing-press,  the  types,  and  the  prin- 
ters themselves  to  complete  the  work  in  England. 
It  was  published  in  April,  1539,  and  was  "  author- 
ized to  be  used  and  frequented  in  every  church  in 
the  kingdom."  *  The  reader  who  wants  a  speci- 
men of  its  style  has  but  to  turn  to  the  Psalms  in 
his  Prayer-Book  or  the  "  Comfortable  Words  " 
in  the  Communion  Service,  which  are  taken  un- 
changed from  the  Great  Bible.  It  has  another 
point  of  interest  in  connection  with  the  Revised 
Version.  It  indicated  some  texts  as  doubtful  by 
printing  them  in  small  type,  and  among  them  was 
the  celebrated  passage  1  John  v.  7,  8,  which  the 
recent  revisers  have  omitted  altogether.2 

But  more  important  to  notice  is  the  fact  that  the 
book  is  really  no  new  translation.  It  may  be 
described  as  a  compilation  from  Matthews'  and 

1  When  Henry  was  asked  to  authorize  it,  "  Well,"  said  he, 
"but  are  there  any  heresies  maintained  thereby?"  They  an- 
swered that  there  were  no  heresies  that  they  could  find  main- 
tained in  it.  "  Then  in  God's  name,"  said  the  King,  "  let  it  go 
forth  among  our  people." 
"See  forward  page  14*. 


THE  BIBLE  AFTER  TYNDALE'S  DAYS.    119 

Coverdale's  Bibles — or  better  still,  perhaps,  as  a 
revision  of  Matthews'  by  Coverdale;  and  since, 
as  we  have  seen,  Matthews'  was  almost  entirely 
Tyndale's  version,  the  Great  Bible  was  really  little 
more  than  a  revised  edition  of  Tyndale ! 

Thus  had  the  old  martyr  triumphed.  These 
men  had  opposed  him  to  the  very  day  of  his 
death,  and  now  here  was  his  Bible  in  their  midst, 
though  they  knew  it  not,  authorized  by  the  king, 
commended  by  the  clergy,  and  placed  in  the  parish 
churches  for  the  teaching  of  the  people !  And  as 
if  to  mark  the  change  with  all  the  emphasis  that 
was  possible,  an  inscription  on  the  title-page  told 
that  "  it  was  oversene  and  perused  at  the  com- 
mandement  of  the  King's  Highness  by  the  ryghte 
reverende  fathers  in  God,  Cuthbert  bishop  of 
Duresme  (Durham),  and  Nicholas  bishop  of 
Rochester."  Who,  think  you,  reader,  was  Cuth- 
bert of  Duresme?  None  other  than  Cuthbert 
Tonstal,  his  untiring  opponent,  the  bishop  who 
had  turned  him  discouraged  from  his  door,  who 
had  bargained  with  Pakington  to  purchase  the 
Bibles,  who  had  hurled  into  the  flames  from  the 
pulpit  of  Paul's  Cross  the  translation  which  now 
went  forth  with  his  own  name  on  its  title  page. 


120  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 


II. 

Twenty  Years  After. 

It  is  the  day  of  Elizabeth's  entry  into  London, 
and  the  streets  are  bright  with  waving  banners  and 
gay  dresses  of  the  citizens  struggling  to  get  closer 
to  the  royal  procession,  and  shouting  with  joy  as 
they  behold  their  young  queen.  There  is  more  in 
those  shouts  than  the  mere  gaiety  of  a  holiday 
crowd.  It  is  a  glad  day  for  many  in  England. 
The  dark  reign  of  Mary  is  over,  with  its  imprison- 
ments and  martyrdoms,  and  the  men  of  the  Refor- 
mation are  looking  forward  hopefully  to  the 
future.  There  are  those  in  that  crowd  who  have 
lived  for  years  in  constant  dread — there  are  those 
who  have  had  to  fly  for  their  lives,  some  of  them 
companions  of  the  exiles  at  Geneva,  waiting  to 
send  word  to  their  comrades  abroad  how  it  should 
fare  in  England. 

Now  the  shouting  has  ceased.  There  is  a  pause 
in  the  long  line  of  banners  and  plumes  and  glitter- 
ing steel.  The  procession  has  just  arrived  at  "  the 
little  Conduit  in  Chepe,"  where  one  of  those 
pageants,  the  delight  of  our  forefathers,  is  pre- 
pared. An  old  man  in  emblematic  dress  stands 
forth  before  the  queen,  and  it  is  told  Her  Grace 
that  this  is  Time.  "  Time,"  quoth  she,  "  and 
Time  it  was  that  brought  me  hither."    Beside  him 


THE  BIBLE  AFTER  TYNDALE'S  DAYS.     121 

stands  a  white-robed  maiden,  who  is  introduced  as 
"  Truth,  the  daughter  of  Time."  She  holds  in 
her  hand  a  book  on  which  is  written  "  Verbum 
veritatls"  the  Word  of  truth,  an  English  Bible, 
which  she  presents  to  the  queen.  Raising  it  with 
both  her  hands,  Elizabeth  presses  it  to  her  lips, 
and  then  laying  it  against  her  heart,  amid  the 
enthusiastic  shouting  of  the  multitude,  she  grace- 
fully thanks  the  city  for  so  precious  a  gift. 

It  was  a  good  omen  for  the  future  of  the  Bible, 
which  had  been  almost  a  closed  book  in  the  pre- 
ceding reign.  And  within  three  months  it  was  fol- 
lowed by  one  still  more  significant.  The  Reform- 
ers who  had  fled  to  Geneva  returned  to  their 
homes,  bearing  with  them  a  new  version  of  the 
Bible,  the  work  of  the  best  years  of  their  banish- 
ment,1 and  the  dedication  of  the  book  was  ac- 
cepted by  Elizabeth. 

This  was  the  first  appearance  in  England  of  the 
famous  Geneva  Bible,  the  "  Breeches  Bible, "  as  it 
was  afterward  called,  from  its  rendering  of  Gen- 
esis iii.  7,  where  Adam  and  Eve  "  sewed  fig-tree 
leaves  together,  and  made  themselves  breeches."  2 
It  was  the  most  popular  Bible  that  had  ever 
appeared  in  England,  and  for  sixty  years  it  held 

1  Myles  Coverdale  was  one  of  them. 

2  It  was  really  only  one  edition  published  by  Barker  that  con- 
tained this  reading,  which  was  also  the  reading  of  WyclifrVs 
Bible. 


122  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

its  own  against  all  rivals,  for  a  time  contesting  the 
ground  even  with  our  own  Authorized  Version. 

It  was  both  cheaper  and  less  cumbrous  than  the 
"  Great  Bible  "  of  Cranmer,  as  well  as  being  a 
much  more  careful  and  accurate  work,  though, 
like  most  of  its  predecessors,  it  was  more  a 
revision  than  a  translation,  being  chiefly  based  on 
Tyndale.  It  contained  marginal  notes,  which 
were  considered  very  helpful  in  dealing  with 
obscure  passages  of  Scripture,  though,  as  might 
be  expected  from  Geneva,  they  were  sometimes 
of  a  strongly  Calvinistic  and  anti-church  bias.* 
These  notes  should  possess  a  special  interest  for 
us,  for,  as  we  shall  see  afterward,  we  have  partly 
to  thank  them  for  our  Authorized  Version  of 
to-day. 

Some  other  of  its  peculiarities  are  worth  notice. 
It  was  the  first  Bible  that  laid  aside  the  old  black 
letter  for  the  present  Roman  type.  It  was  also 
the  first  to  recognize  the  divisions  into  verses,  and 
the  first  to  omit  the  Apocrypha.  It  omits  the 
name  of  St.  Paul  from  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews, 
and  it  uses  italics  for  all  words  not  occurring  in 
the  original. 


♦Take  for  example  the  note  on  Rev.  ix.  3.  The  "  locusts  that 
came  out  of  the  bottomless  pit "  are  explained  as  meaning 
"  false  teachers,  heretics,  and  worldly  subtil  prelates,  with 
Monks,  Friars,  Cardinals,  Patriarchs,  Archbishops,  Bishops, 
Doctors,  Bachelors  and  Masters  of  Artes,  which  forsake  Christ 
to  maintain  false  doctrine." 


THE  BIBLE  AFTER  TYNDALE'S  DAYS.     123 

The  history  of  the  dark  troublous  days  of  oppo- 
sition to  the  Bible  and  persecution  to  its  promoters 
ceases  forever  (let  us  hope)  with  the  issue  of  the 
Geneva  Bible. 


III. 


Fifty  Years  More  gone  by. 

How  Tyndale's  heart  would  have  swelled  at  the 
sight!  A  king  of  England  himself  is  directing  an 
English  Bible  translation ! 

In  January,  1604,  a  conference  of  bishops  and 
clergy  had  been  held  in  the  drawing-rooms  of 
Hampton  Court  Palace,  under  the  presidency  of 
King  James  himself,  to  consider  certain  alleged 
grievances  of  the  Puritan  party  in  the  Church,  and 
among  other  subjects  of  discussion  was  rather 
unexpectedly  brought  up  that  of  the  defectiveness 
of  the  two  current  translations  of  Scripture. 

England  had  at  that  time  three  different  ver- 
sions.  The  Genevan  was  the  favorite  of  the  peo- 
ple in  general;  a  rival  version,  called  the  Bishop's 
Bible,  which  had  been  brought  out  some  eight 
years  after,  was  supported  by  ecclesiastical  au- 
thority; while  the  "  Great  Bible  "  of  Henry  VIII. 


124 


HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 
Specimens. 


23D  Psalm. 
Coverdale's,  1535.       Great  Bible,  1539. 


ttbe  Xorbe  is  ms  0bepberbe 
t  can  want  notbing*  1be 
febetb  me  in  a  Qtccrxc  pa0* 
ture  anb  lebetb  me  to  a  treeb 
water*  f)e  quicltenetb  ms 
6oule  anb  brtngetb  me  tortb 
In  tbe  wase  of  ri<jbteeou0* 
neaa  tot  bis  names  safte* 
Gbougb  f  sbulbe  walfte  now 
in  tbe  valley  ot  tbe  sbabowe 
of  beatb  set  t  f  eare  no  euell 
for  tbou  are  witb  me,  tbs 
0tafTe  anb  tbs  0bepebofte 
comforte  me* 

Gbou  prepare0t  a  table 
before  a{jasn0t  mine  ene* 
mies  tbou  ano*>nte0t  ms 
beabe  witb  osle  anb  fslle0t 
ms  cuppe  full*  ©b  let  tbs 
loutn^ftsnbnes  anb  meres 
folowe  me  all  tbe  ba$e0  off 
ms  tsfe  tbat  1  mase  Dwell 
in  tbe  bou0e  oft  tbe  JLotb 
for  euet. 


Gbe  Xorbe  ie  ms  0bepberbe 
tberefore  can  f  lacfte  notb* 
trig.  1be  0bal  febe  me  in  a 
grene  pasture  anb  leabe  me 
fortb  be0£be  s*  watir0  of 
coforte*  1be  6bal  conuert 
ms  0oule  anb  bring  me  fortb 
in  v  patbe0  of  ri0bteou0ne0 
tor  bi0  names  sake*  ffiea 
tboufib  f  walfte  tborowe  s« 
vallese  of  s«  sbabowe  ot 
beatb  tf  wgl  fear  no  euell 
for  tbou  art  w/  me :  tbs  rob 
anb  tbs  0tatTe  comfort  me» 
Gbou  0balt  prepare  a  table 
before  me  aoasn0t  tbem 
tbat  trouble  me:  tbou  ba0 
anosnteb  ms  beab  w*  osle 
anb  ms  cup  0bal  be  fuL 
38ut  louing  ftsnbne0  anb 
meres  0bal  folowe  me  all 
tbe  Dase0  of  ms  Isfe  anb 
f  wsll  fcwel  in  s<  bou0t  ot 
Ve  Xorbe  for  euer. 


THE  BIBLE  AFTER  TYNDALE'S  DAYS.    125 
Specimens. 


23D  Psalm. 


Genevan  Bible,  1560. 

1.  The  Lord  is  my  shepheard 
I  shall  not  want. 

2.  Hee  maketh  mee  to  rest  in 
greene  pasture  and  leadeth 
mee  by  the  still  waters. 

3.  He  restoreth  my  soule  and 
leadeth  me  in  the  paths  of 
righteousness  for  His  Names 
sake. 

4.  Ye  though  I  walk  through 
the  valley  of  the  shadowe  of 
death  I  will  feare  no  euill  for 
thou  art  with  me:  thy  rodde 
and  thy  staffe  they  comfort  me. 

5.  Thou  doest  prepare  a  table 
before  me  in  the  sight  of  mine 
adversaries;  thou  dost  anoynt 
mine  head  with  oyle  and  my 
cup  runneth  over. 

6.  Doubtlesse  kindnesse  and 
mercy  shall  follow  mee  all  the 
dayes  of  my  life  and  I  shal 
remaine  a  long  season  in  the 
house  of  the  Lord. 


Bishops'  Bible,  1568. 

1.  God  is  my  shephearde 
therefore  I  can  lacke  nothyng: 
he  wyll  cause  me  to  repose  my- 
selfe  in  pasture  full  of  grasse 
and  he  wyll  leade  me  vnto 
calme  waters. 

2.  He  will  conuert  my  soule ; 
he  wyll  bring  me  foorth  into 
the  pathes  of  righteousnesse  for 
his  names  sake. 

3.  Yea  though  I  walke 
through  the  valley  of  the  shad- 
owe  of  death  I  wyll  fear  no 
euyll ;  for  thou  art  with  me, 
thy  rodde  and  thy  staffe  be  the 
thynges  that  do  comfort  me. 

4.  Thou  wilt  prepare  a  table 
before  me  in  the  presence  of 
myne  aduersaries;  thou  has 
anoynted  my  head  with  oyle 
and  my  cup  shalbe  brymme  ful. 

5.  Truly  felicitie  and  mercy 
shal  folowe  me  all  the  dayes 
of  my  lyfe:  and  I  wyll  dwell 
in  the  house  of  God  for  a  long 
tyme. 


126  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

might  still  be  seen  chained  to  a  stone  or  wooden 
desk  in  many  of  the  country  churches.  But  none 
of  these  was  likely  to  be  accepted  as  the  Bible  of 
the  English  nation.  The  Great  Bible  was  anti- 
quated and  cumbersome,  the  Genevan,  though  a 
careful  translation  and  convenient  for  general  use, 
had  become,  through  the  Puritan  character  of  its 
notes,  quite  the  Bible  of  a  party;  while  the 
Bishops'  Version,  a  very  inferior  production, 
neither  commanded  the  respect  of  scholars  nor 
suited  the  wants  of  the  people. 

There  was,  therefore,  plainly  a  need  for  a  new 
version,  which,  being  accepted  by  all,  should  form 
a  bond  of  union  between  different  classes  and  rival 
religious  communities.  Yet  when  Dr.  Reynolds, 
the  leader  of  the  Puritan  party,  put  forward  such 
a  proposal  at  the  Conference,  it  was  very  coldly 
received,  Bancroft,  bishop  of  London,  seeming  to 
express  the  general  feeling  of  his  party  when  he 
grumbled  that  "  if  every  man  had  his  humor  about 
new  versions,  there  would  be  no  end  of  translat- 
ing." Probably  the  fact  of  the  proposal  having 
come  from  the  Puritans  had  also  some  effect  on 
this  conservatism  of  the  bishops;  in  any  case  it 
seemed  that  the  project  must  fall  through  for 
want  of  their  support. 

But  if  the  bishops  in  the  palace  drawing-room 
that  day  thought  so,  they  soon  found  that  they  had 
literally  "  calculated  without  their  host."     There 


THE  BIBLE  AFTER  TYNDALE'S  DAYS.    127 

was  one  man  in  that  assembly  who  looked  with 
special  favour  on  the  new  proposal,  and  that  man 
was  the  royal  pedant  who  presided.  A  Bible 
translation  made  under  his  auspices  would  greatly 
add  to  the  glory  of  his  reign,  besides  which,  to  a 
man  whose  learning  was  really  considerable,  and 
who  was  specially  fond  of  displaying  it  in  theo- 
logical matters,  the  direction  of  such  a  work  would 
be  very  congenial.  And  if  a  further  motive  were 
needed,  it  was  easily  found  in  his  unconcealed  dis- 
like to  the  popular  Geneva  Bible.  The  whole 
tone  of  its  politics  and  theology,  as  exhibited  in 
the  marginal  notes,  was  utterly  distasteful  to 
James,  as  he  plainly  showed  soon  after  in  his 
directions  to  the  new  translators,  for  "  marry 
withal,  he  gave  this  caveat,  that  no  notes  should 
be  added,  having  found  in  those  which  were  an- 
nexed to  the  Geneva  translation  some  notes  very 
partial,  untrue,  seditious,  and  savoring  too  much 
of  dangerous  and  traitorous  conceits." 

Two  of  these  notes  especially  vexed  him.  In 
2  Chron.  xv.  1 6  it  is  recorded  that  Asa  "  removed 
his  mother  from  being  queen,  because  she  had 
made  an  idol  in  a  grove";  and  the  margin  con- 
tains this  comment,  "  Herein  he  showed  that  he 
lacked  zeal,  for  she  ought  to  have  died,"  a  remark 
probably  often  remembered  by  the  fanatics  of  the 
day  in  reference  to  the  death  of  James's  mother, 
the  Queen  of  Scots.  There  was  another  note  which 


128  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

rather  amusingly  clashed  with  the  grand  Stuart 
theories  of  the  divine  right  of  kings  to  be  above 
all  law  and  to  command  implicit  obedience  from 
their  subjects.  In  the  passage  in  the  first  chapter 
of  Exodus  describing  the  conduct  of  the  Hebrew 
midwives,  who  "  did  not  as  the  king  of  Egypt  com- 
manded, but  saved  the  men-children  alive,"  the 
margin  declares  "  their  disobedience  to  the  king 
was  lawful,  though  their  dissembling  was  evil." 
"  It  is  false,"  cried  the  indignant  advocate  of 
kingly  right;  "to  disobey  a  king  is  not  lawful; 
such  traitorous  conceits  should  not  go  forth  among 
the  people." 

But,  however  men  may  smile  at  the  absurdities 
of  James,  which  in  some  measure  led  to  the  new 
translation,  there  can  be  no  question  as  to  the  wis- 
dom shown  in  his  arrangements  for  carrying  out 
the  work.  Fifty-four  learned  men  were  selected 
impartially  from  High  Churchmen  and  Puritans, 
as  well  as  from  those  who,  like  Saville  and  Boys, 
represented  scholarship  totally  unconnected  with 
any  party.  And  in  addition  to  this  band  of  ap- 
pointed revisers,  the  king  also  designed  to  secure 
the  cooperation  of  every  Biblical  scholar  of  note 
in  the  kingdom.  The  Vice-Chancellor  of  Cam- 
bridge was  desired  to  name  any  fit  man  with  whom 
he  was  acquainted,  and  Bishop  Bancroft  received 
a  letter  from  the  king  himself,  directing  him  to 
"  move  the  bishops  to  inform  themselves  of  all 


THE  BIBLE  AFTER  TYNDALE'S  DAYS.     129 

such  learned  men  within  their  several  dioceses  as, 
having  especial  skill  in  the  Hebrew  and  Greek 
tongues,  have  taken  pains  in  their  private  studies 
of  the  Scriptures  for  the  clearing  of  any  obscuri- 
ties either  in  the  Hebrew  or  the  Greek,  or  touch- 
ing any  difficulties  or  mistakings  in  the  former 
English  translations,  which  we  have  now  com- 
manded to  be  thoroughly  viewed  and  amended, 
and  thereupon  to  earnestly  charge  them,  signify- 
ing our  pleasure  therein,  that  they  send  such  their 
observations  to  Mr.  Lively  our  Hebrew  reader  in 
Cambridge,  or  to  Dr.  Harding,  our  Hebrew 
reader  in  Oxford,  or  to  Dr.  Andrews,  Dean  of 
Westminster,  to  be  imparted  to  the  rest  of  their 
several  companies,  that  so  our  said  intended  trans- 
lation may  have  the  help  and  furtherance  of  all 
our  principal  learned  men  within  this  our  king- 
dom." 

An  admirable  set  of  rules  was  drawn  up  for  the 
instruction  of  the  revisers,  directing  amongst  other 
things  that  the  Bishops'  Bible  should  be  used  as  a 
basis,  and  departed  from  only  when  the  text  re- 
quired it;  that  any  competent  scholars  might  be 
consulted  about  special  difficulties;  that  differences 
of  opinion  should  be  settled  at  a  general  meeting; 
that  divisions  of  chapters  should  be  as  little 
changed  as  possible,  and  marginal  references 
should  be  given  from  one  scripture  to  another; 
and  last,  but  by  no  means  least,  that  there  should 


130  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

be  no  marginal  notes,  except  for  the  explana- 
tion of  Hebrew  and  Greek  words.  This  simple 
rule  did  probably  more  than  anything  else  to  make 
our  Authorized  Version  the  Bible  of  all  classes 
in  England,  binding  us  together  as  a  Christian 
nation  by  a  tie  which  the  strife  of  parties  and  the 
war  of  politics  has  since  been  insufficient  to  sever. 
Had  the  opposite  course  been  adopted,  we  should 
now  have  probably  the  Bibles  of  different  religious 
bodies  competing  in  unseemly  rivalry,  each  reflect- 
ing the  theological  bias  of  the  party  from  which 
it  came. 

Never  before  had  such  labour  and  care  been 
expended  on  the  English  Bible.  The  revisers 
were  divided  into  six  companies,  each  of  which 
took  its  own  portion,  and  every  aid  accessible  was 
used  to  make  their  work  a  thorough  success.  They 
carefully  studied  the  Greek  and  Hebrew;  they 
used  the  best  commentaries  of  European  scholars; 
the  Bibles  in  Spanish,  Italian,  French,  and  German 
were  examined  for  any  help  they  might  afford  in 
arriving  at  the  exact  sense  of  each  passage;  and 
when  the  sense  was  found,  no  pains  were  spared  to 
express  it  in  clear,  vigorous,  idiomatic  English. 
All  the  excellences  of  the  previous  versions  were 
noted,  for  the  purpose  of  incorporating  them  in 
the  work,  and  even  the  Rhemish  (Roman  Cath- 
olic) translation  was  laid  under  contribution  for 
some    expressive    phrases    which    it    contained. 


THE  BIBLE  AFTER  TYNDALE'S  DAYS.    13i 

11  Neither,"  says  Dr.  Miles  Smith,  in  the  preface, 
"  did  we  disdain  to  revise  that  which  we  had  done, 
and  to  bring  back  to  the  anvil  that  which  we  had 
hammered,  fearing  no  reproach  for  slowness  nor 
coveting  praise  for  expedition;"  and  the  result 
was  the  production  of  this  splendid  Authorized 
Version  of  which  Englishmen  to-day  are  so  justly 
proud. 

For  more  than  two  centuries  English  Protestant 
writers  have  spoken  of  it  in  terms  of  almost  unani- 
mous praise — its  "  grace  and  dignity,"  its  "  flow- 
ing words,"  its  "  masterly  English  style."  Even 
a  Roman  Catholic  divine,  Dr.  Geddes  (1786), 
declares  that  "  if  accuracy  and  strictest  attention 
to  the  letter  of  the  text  be  supposed  to  constitute 
an  excellent  version,  this  is  of  all  versions  the 
most  excellent."  And  an  almost  touching  tribute 
is  paid  it  by  one  who  evidently  looked  back  on  it 
with  yearning  regret,  after  having  exchanged  its 
beauties  for  the  uncouthness  of  the  Romanist  ver- 
sions. "  Who  will  say,"  writes  Father  Faber, 
"  that  the  uncommon  beauty  and  marvellous 
English  of  the  Protestant  Bible  is  not  one  of  the 
great  strongholds  of  heresy  in  this  country?  It 
lives  on  the  ear  like  a  music  that  can  never  be  for- 
gotten, like  the  sound  of  church  bells,  which  the 
convert  scarcely  knows  how  he  can  forego.  Its 
felicities  seem  often  to  be  almost  things  rather 
than  words.    It  is  part  of  the  national  mind,  and 


132  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

the  anchor  of  the  national  seriousness.  Nay,  it  is 
worshipped  with  a  positive  idolatry,  in  extenua- 
tion of  whose  fanaticism  its  intrinsic  beauty  pleads 
availingly  with  the  scholar.  The  memory  of  the 
dead  passes  into  it.  The  potent  traditions  of 
childhood  are  stereotyped  in  its  verses.  It  is  the 
representative  of  a  man's  best  moments ;  all  that 
there  has  been  about  him  of  soft,  and  gentle,  and 
pure,  and  penitent,  and  good  speaks  to  him  for- 
ever out  of  his  English  Bible.  It  is  his  sacred 
thing,  which  doubt  never  dimmed  and  controversy 
never  soiled;  and  in  the  length  and  breadth  of  the 
land  there  is  not  a  Protestant  with  one  spark  of 
religiousness  about  him  whose  spiritual  biography 
is  not  in  his  Saxon  Bible." 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

THE  REVISED  VERSION. 

I.  Preparation  for  Revision.  II.  The  Jerusalem  Chamber.  III. 
The  Revisers  at  Work.  IV.  Claims  of  the  Revised  Bible. 
V.  Should  it  Disturb  Men's  Faith?  VI.  General  Remarks. 
VII.  Conclusion. 

While  fully  appreciating  the  beauty  and  excel- 
lence of  his  Authorized  Version,  the  reader  who 
has  thus  far  followed  this  little  sketch  will  scarcely 
require  now  to  ask,  Why  should  we  have  needed  a 
new  revision? 

He  will  have  seen  that  the  whole  history  of  the 
English  Bible  from  Tyndale's  days  is  a  history  of 
growth  and  improvement  by  means  of  repeated 
revisions.  Tyndale's  first  New  Testament  (1525) 
was  revised  by  himself  in  1534,  and  again  in  1535. 
In  Matthews'  Bible  it  appeared  still  more  im- 
proved in  1537.  The  Great  Bible  (1539)  was  the 
result  of  a  further  revision,  which  was  repeated 
again  in  the  Genevan  (1560),  the  Bishops' 
(1568),  and  still  more  thoroughly  in  our  splendid 
Authorized  Version  (1611),  which  latter  is  itself 
one  of  the  best  proofs  of  the  value  of  Bible 
revision. 

133 


134  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

He  will  have  seen  also  (to  recapitulate  here  for 
greater  clearness)  —  (i.)  that  in  the  present  day 
we  have  access  to  a  treasury  of  ancient  manu* 
scripts,  versions,  and  quotations  such  as  the  schol- 
ars of  King  James's  day  had  never  dreamed  of; 
(2.)  that  the  science  of  textual  criticism,  which 
teaches  the  value  and  the  best  methods  of  dealing 
with  these  documents,  has  entirely  sprung  up  since; 
(3.)  that  our  scholars  are  better  acquainted  with 
the  Sacred  Languages,  and  able  to  distinguish 
delicate  shades  of  meaning  which  were  quite  lost 
on  their  predecessors;  and  (4.)  lastly,  that  owing 
to  the  natural  growth  of  the  English  language 
itself  many  words  in  the  Authorized  Version  have 
become  obsolete,  and  several  have  completely 
changed  their  meaning  during  the  past  300  years. 

This  last  is  more  important  than  people  think. 
More  than  200  words  have  thus  quite  changed 
their  meaning,  e.  g.}  carriages,  comfort,  common, 
conversation,  damnation,  let,  malice,  mortify, 
prevent,  &c. ;  also  phrases  such  as  "  take  no 
thought,"  &c.  Sometimes  the  change  of  meaning 
is  of  very  serious  consequence.  Take,  for  ex- 
ample, the  word  damnation  which  now  conveys 
to  us  the  idea  in  every  case  of  doom  to  a  Hell  of 
unending  torment  and  unending  sin.  The  English 
word  did  not  mean  that  some  centuries  ago.  The 
original  Greek  word  means  to  judge  or  sometimes 
to    judge    adversely,  to  condemn,   and    the  old 


THE  REVISED  VERSION.  135 

English  word  "  damn  "  meant  that  and  no  more. 
There  is  an  interesting  example  in  the  Wycliffe 
Bible  in  the  passage  about  the  woman  taken  in 
adultery,  St.  John  viii.  10.  Jesus  says,  "  Woman, 
hath  no  man  damned  thee?  "  "  No  man,  Lord." 
"  Neither  do  I  damn  thee."  That  is  to  say,  the 
English  word  damn  at  that  time  only  meant  con- 
demn, without  saying  to  what  one  was  condemned'. 
But  words  are  dangerous  things  if  not  carefully 
watched,  owing  to  this  tendency  to  change  their 
meaning  as  a  language  grows.  For  example,  "  He 
that  believeth  not  shall  be  damned  "  would,  three 
or  four  hundred  years  ago,  have  correctly 
expressed  the  meaning  of  the  Greek.  Not  so 
to-day.  The  English  word  "  damned  "  has  taken 
on  a  darker  meaning.  Therefore  we  must  sub- 
stitute for  it  the  word  "  condemned."  So  that  on 
account  of  this  change  of  meaning  as  a  language 
grows,  if  for  no  other  cause,  revision  at  certain 
periods  will  always  be  needed. 

For  all  these  reasons  then  the  duty  is  laid  upon 
our  Biblical  scholars  which  Tyndale  in  his  first 
preface  imposed  on  those  of  his  own  day,  ^  that  if 
they  perceive  in  any  place  that  the  version  has  not 
attained  unto  the  very  sense  of  the  tongue  or  the 
very  meaning  of  Scripture,  or  have  not  given  the: 
right  English  word,  that  they  should  put  to  their 
hands  and  amend  it,  remembering  that  so  is  their 
duty  to  do" 


136  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

About  the  beginning  of  the  last  century  the 
appearance  of  several  partial  revisions  by  private 
individuals  indicated  the  feeling  in  the  minds  of 
scholars  that  the  time  for  a  new  Bible  Revision 
was  at  hand.  As  years  went  on  the  feeling  grew 
stronger,  and  leading  men  in  the  Church  were 
pleading  that  the  work  should  not  be  long  delayed. 
During  the  past  250  years,  they  urged,  great 
stores  of  Biblical  information  have  been  accumu- 
lating; *  our  ability  to  use  such  information  has 
been  greatly  increased;  and  it  is  of  importance  to 
the  interests  of  religion  that  that  information 
should  be  fully  disseminated  by  a  careful  correc- 
tion of  our  received  Scriptures.  Dr.  Teschendorf's 
discovery  at  Mount  Sinai  still  further  intensified 
this  feeling;  and  so  it  created  little  surprise  when, 
on  the  10th  February,  1870,  Bishop  Wilberforce 

1  Fully  200  years  ago  the  way  began  to  be  prepared  for  our 
present  revision  by  several  criticisms  and  attempts  at  correction 
of  the  Authorized  Version.  It  soon  became  clear,  however,  that 
such  attempts  were  premature  in  the  then  state  of  information 
as  to  the  Original  Scriptures,  and  scholars  began  to  direct  their 
attention  rather  to  the  laying  of  the  foundation  for  a  revision  in 
the  future  by  collecting  and  examining  Greek  and  Hebrew 
manuscripts,  together  with  the  various  early  versions  and  quota- 
tions from  the  Fathers.  Toward  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury Kennicott  and  De  Rossi  had  published  the  results  of  their 
examination  of  several  hundred  Hebrew  manuscripts;  and  in 
more  recent  times  the  same  service  was  rendered  to  the  Greek 
by  Drs.  Tischendorf,  Tregelles,  Scrivener,  and  others,  whose  way 
had  been  prepared  by  many  distinguished  predecessors.  Besides, 
there  was  the  work  of  a  long  series  of  commentators  in  investi- 
gating the  meaning  of  the  Sacred  Writers,  so  that,  on  the  whole, 
a  very  valuable  foundation  for  revision  existed  by  the  middle 
of  the  present  century- 


THE  REVISED  VERSION.  137 

rose  in  the  Upper  House  of  the  Southern  Convo- 
cation to  propose,  "  That  a  committee  of  both 
Houses  be  appointed,  with  power  to  confer  with 
any  committee  that  may  be  appointed  by  the  Con- 
vocation of  the  Northern  Province,  to  report  on 
the  desirableness  of  a  revision  of  the  Authorized 
Version  of  the  New  Testament,  whether  by  mar- 
ginal notes  or  otherwise,  in  all  those  passages 
where  plain  and  clear  errors,  whether  in  the  Greek 
text  adopted  by  the  translators,  or  in  the  transla- 
tion made  from  the  same,  shall  on  due  investiga- 
tion be  found  to  exist."  After  the  enlarging  of 
this  resolution  so  as  to  include  the  Old  Testament 
also,  it  was  adopted  by  both  Houses, 


II. 

Four  months  later,  on  a  summer  day  toward 
the  close  of  June,  1870,  a  distinguished  company 
was;  assembled  in  the  Jerusalem  Chamber  in  West- 
minster Abbey. 

In  that  room  in  days  long  gone  by  the  first  of 
the  Lancastrian  kings  breathed  out  his  weary  life. 
Beneath  those  windows  sat  the  "  Assembly  of 
Divines "  when  the  ill-fated  Charles  ruled  in 
England;  here  the  Westminster  Confession  was 
drawn  up;  and  here  too,  under  the  auspices  of 
William    of    Orange,    was    discussed    the    great 


138  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

Prayer-Book  Revision  of  1689,  intended  to  join 
together  Churchmen  and  Dissenters. 

But  no  memory  of  that  ancient  chamber  will 
eclipse  in  the  future  that  of  the  work  for  which 
these  men  were  assembled  on  that  summer  after- 
noon, for  the  Bible  Revision  had  at  length  been 
begun,  and  this  was  the  appointed  New  Testa- 
ment Company. 

At  the  centre  of  the  long  table  sat  the  chairman, 
Bishop  Ellicott,  and  around  him  the  flower  of  our 
English  scholarship.  There  were  Alford  and 
Stanley  and  Lightfoot,  intently  studying  the  sheets 
before  them  on  the  table.  Westcott  was  there, 
and  Hort  and  Scrivener — names  long  famous  in 
the  history  of  textual  criticism — Dr.  Eadie  of 
Scotland,  and  the  Master  of  the  Temple,  and  the 
venerable  Archbishop  Trench  of  Dublin,  with 
many  other  scholars  no  less  distinguished  than 
they.  Different  religious  communities  were  repre- 
sented— different  schools  of  thought — different 
opinions  on  matters  closely  connected  with  the 
work  in  hand.  This  is  one  of  the  great  securities 
for  the  fairness  of  the  New  Revision.  Whatever 
other  charges  may  be  brought  against  it,  that  of 
bias,  even  unconscious  bias,  toward  any  set  of 
theological  views  is  quite  out  of  the  question  where 
Baptist  and  Methodist  and  Presbyterian  and 
Churchman  sat  side  by  side  in  the  selected  com- 
pany of  Revisers.    And,  as  if  to  make  this  assur- 


THE  REVISED  VERSION.  139 

ance  doubly  sure,  across  the  Atlantic  a  similarly 
constituted  company  was  preparing  to  cooperate 
with  these  to  criticize  the  work  and  suggest 
emendations,  so  that  on  the  whole  nearly  a  hun- 
dred of  the  ripest  scholars  of  England  and 
America  were  connected  with  the  New  Revision. 


III. 

And  now  let  us  watch  the  Revisers  at  their 
work.  Before  each  man  lies  a  sheet  with  a  column 
of  the  Authorized  Version  printed  in  the  middle, 
leaving  a  wide  margin  on  either  side  for  suggested 
alterations,  the  left  hand  for  changes  in  the  Greek 
text,  and  the  right  for  those  referring  to  the 
English  rendering.  These  sheets  are  already  cov- 
ered with  notes,  the  result  of  each  Reviser's  pri- 
vate study  of  the  passage  beforehand.  After 
prayers  and  reading  of  the  minutes,  the  chairman 
re^ds  over  for  the  company  part  of  the  passage 
on  the  printed  sheet  (Matt.  i.  18-25),  and  asks 
for  any  suggested  emendations. 

At  the  first  verse  a  member,  referring  to  the 
notes  on  his  sheet,  remarks  that  certain  old  manu- 
scripts read  "  the  birth  of  the  Christ  "  instead  of 
"  the  birth  of  Jesus  Christ."  Dr.  Scrivener  and 
Dr.  Hort  state  the  evidence  on  the  subject,  and 
after  a  full  discussion  it  is  decided  by  the  votes  of 

the  meeting  that  the  received  reading  has  most 
10 


140  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

authority  in  its  favor;  but,  in  order  to  represent 
fairly  the  state  of  the  case,  it  is  allowed  that  the 
margin  should  contain  the  words,  "  Some  ancient 
authorities  read  '  of  the  Christ.'  "  Some  of  the 
members  are  of  opinion  that  the  name  "  Holy 
Ghost  "  in  same  verse  would  be  better  if  modern- 
ized into  "  Holy  Spirit,"  but  as  this  is  a  mere 
question  of  rendering,  it  is  laid  aside  until  the 
textual  corrections  have  been  discussed.  The  next 
of  importance  is  the  word  "  firstborn  "  in  ver.  25, 
which  is  omitted  in  many  old  authorities.  Again 
the  evidence  on  both  sides  is  fully  stated,  and  the 
members  present,  each  of  whom  has  already  pri- 
vately studied  it  before,  vote  on  the  question,  the 
result  being  that  the  words  "  her  firstborn  "  are 
omitted. 

And  now,  the  textual  question  being  settled,  the 
chairman  asks  for  suggestions  as  to  the  rendering, 
and  it  is  proposed  that  in  the  first  verse  the  word 
"  betrothed "  should  be  substituted  for  "  es- 
poused," the  latter  being  rather  an  antiquated 
form.  This  also  is  decided  by  vote  in  the  affirma- 
tive, and  thus  they  proceed  verse  by  verse  till  the 
close  of  the  meeting,  when  the  whole  passage,  as 
amended,  is  read  over  by  the  chairman. 

Four  years  afterward  we  glance  at  their  work 
again.  They  have  reached  now  the  First  Epistle 
General  of  St.  John,  and  the  sheets  lying  before 
them  contain  part  of  the  5th  chapter.     No  ques- 


THE  REVISED  VERSION.  141 

tion  of  importance  arises  till  the  7th  verse  is 
reached — 

7.  "  For  there  are  three  that  bear  record  [in  heaven — the 
Father,  the  Word,  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  these  three  are  one. 

$.  And  there  are  three  that  bear  witness  in  earth],  the  Spirit, 
and  the  Water,  and  the  Blood,  and  these  three  agree  in  one  " — 

when  it  is  proposed  that  that  part  of  the  passage 
which  we  have  here  placed  in  brackets  be  omitted 
as  not  belonging  to  the  original  text. 

Time  was  when  such  a  suggestion  would  have 
roused  a  formidable  controversy ; x  but  textual 
criticism  has  greatly  progressed  since  then,  and  the 
question  is  not  considered  by  the  Revisers  even  to 
need  discussing.  The  evidence  is  as  follows: — 
The  passage  occurs  in  two  modern  Greek  manu- 
scripts— one  of  them  in  the  library  of  Trinity  Col- 
lege, Dublin — in  one  or  two  Ancient  Versions  of 
comparatively  little  value,  and  many  modern 
copies  of  the  Vulgate ;  besides  which  it  is  quoted 
by  a  few  African  Fathers,  whose  testimony,  on 
the  whole,  is  not  of  much  weight  in  its  favor. 

Against  this  are  to  be  set  the  following  facts : — 
(1.)  Not  a  single  Greek  manuscript  or  church  les- 
son-book before  the  fifteenth  century  has  any  trace 
of  the  passage.  This  in  itself  would  be  sufficient 
evidence  against  it.  (2.)  It  is  omitted  in  almost 
every  Ancient  Version  of  any  critical  value,  includ- 

1  Upwards  of  fifty  books,  pamphlets,  &c,  written  on  the  subject 
are  mentioned  in  Home's  Introduction. 


142  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

ing  the  best  copies  of  the  Vulgate  (St.  Jerome's 
Revised  Bible)  ;  and  (3.)  no  Greek  Father  quotes 
it  even  in  the  arguments  about  the  Trinity,  where 
it  would  have  been  of  immense  importance  if  it 
had  been  in  their  copies.  There  is  other  evidence 
against  it  also;  but  it  must  be  quite  clear,  even 
from  this,  that  the  passage  only  lately  got  interpo- 
lated into  our  Greek  Testament,  and  never  had 
any  right  to  its  place  in  the  English  Bible.1  The 
Revisers  therefore  omit  it  from  the  text. 

But  the  reader  must  not  think  that  this  descrip- 
tion represents  the  amount  of  care  bestowed  on 
the  work.  After  this  first  revision  had  been  com- 
pleted, of  a  certain  portion,  it  was  transmitted  to 
America  and  reviewed  by  the  American  commit- 
tee, and  returned  again  to  England.  Then  it 
underwent  a  second  revision,  taking  into  account 
the  American  suggestions,  and  was  again  sent  back 
to  America  to  be  reviewed.  After  these  four 
revisions  it  underwent  a  fifth  in  England,  chiefly 

1  Erasmus  (see  page  83),  not  rinding  the  words  in  any  Greek 
manuscript,  omitted  them  from  the  first  two  editions  of  his  Greek 
Testament,  which  was  chiefly  the  authority  that  our  translators 
used.  But  as  they  had  long  stood  in  the  Latin  Vulgate,  an  outcry 
was  at  once  raised  that  he  was  tampering  with  the  Bible.  He 
insisted  that  no  Greek  manuscript  contained  the  passage ;  "  and," 
said  he  at  last,  when  they  pressed  him,  "  if  you  can  show  me 
even  a  single  one  in  which  they  occur,  I  will  insert  them  in  the 
future."  Unfortunately  they  did  find  one,  the  manuscript  of 
Montfort,  which  is  now  in  the  library  of  Trinity  College,  Dublin, 
but  is  evidently  no  older  than  about  the  fifteenth  century.  The 
words  had  got  into  it  probably  from  some  corrupt  Latin  manu- 
script; and  on  this  slight  authority  Erasmus  admitted  them  into 
his  text. 


THE  REVISED  VERSION.  143 

with  a  view  of  removing  any  roughness  of  render- 
ing. And  there  was  yet  a  sixth,  and  in  some  cases 
even  a  seventh  revision,  for  the  settling  of  points 
that  we  need  not  enter  on  more  fully  here.  So 
that  we  may  have  every  confidence  that  the 
changes  made,  whatever  their  merits,  at  least  were 
made  only  after  the  most  thorough  consideration. 

And  so  the  work  went  on,  month  after  month, 
and  more  than  ten  years  had  passed,  and  some  of 
the  most  eminent  of  those  who  sat  that  summer 
day  in  the  Jerusalem  Chamber  were  numbered 
among  the  dead,  when,  on  the  evening  of  Novem- 
ber ii,  1880,  the  New  Testament  Company 
assembled  in  the  church  of  St.  Martin-in-Fields 
for  a  special  service  of  thanksgiving  and  prayer 
— "  of  thanksgiving  for  the  happy  completion  of 
their  labors — of  prayer  that  all  that  had  been 
wrong  in  their  spirit  or  action  might  mercifully 
be  forgiven,  and  that  He  whose  glory  they  had 
humbly  striven  to  promote  might  graciously  accept 
this  their  service,  and  use  it  for  the  good  of  man 
and  the  honour  of  His  holy  Name." 

Four  years  afterward  the  Old  Testament  Com- 
pany finished  their  work,  and  on  May  5th,  1885, 
the  complete  Revised  Bible  was  in  the  hands  of  the 
public. 


IU  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 


IV. 

Its  reception  has  been  disappointing.  The  pub- 
lie  have  largely  failed  to  appreciate  its  great 
merits  and  its  great  value.  But  perhaps  it  is  too 
soon  yet  to  judge.  For  many  years  after  its  first 
appearance  our  present  Authorized  Version  had  to 
encounter  fierce  opposition  and  severe  criticism — 
Broughton,  the  greatest  Hebrew  scholar  of  the 
day,  wrote  to  King  James  that  he  "  would  rather 
be  torn  asunder  by  wild  horses  than  allow  such  a 
Version  to  be  imposed  on  the  Church,"  1 — and  yet 
in  the  end  it  won  its  way  and  attained  a  position 
that  no  version  before  or  since  in  any  country  has 
attained. 

Whether  the  New  Version  will  equally  succeed, 
or  whether,  as  is  the  general  opinion,  it  will  need 
a  revision  before  being  fully  received,  remains  yet 
to  be  seen.  But  in  any  case  it  should  get  a  fair, 
unprejudiced  reception.  Dr.  Bickersteth  tells  of 
a  smart  young  American  deacon  who  thought  to 
crush  it  on  its  first  appearance  by  informing  his 
people  that  "  if  the  Authorized  Version  was  good 
enough  for  St.  Paul  it  was  good  enough  for  him," 

1  In  fifteen  verses  of  Luke  Hi.,  he  says,  the  translators  have  fif- 
teen score  of  idle  words  to  account  for  in  the  Day  of  Judgment. 
With  Archbishop  Bancroft,  who  took  the  lead  in  the  work,  he  is 
especially  indignant.  He  believes  that  by  and  by  King  James, 
looking  down  from  Abraham's  bosom,  shall  behold  Bancroft  in 
the  place  of  torment. 


THE  REVISED  VERSION.  14S 

and  it  is  to  be  feared  that  with  many  people  who 
are  less  ignorant  there  is  sometimes  a  similar 
spirit  exhibited. 

Now  let  us  remember  that,  whatever  the  merits 
or  demerits  of  the  book,  it  is  at  least  entitled  to 
respect  as  an  earnest  attempt  to  get  nearer  to  the 
truth,  and  to  present  to  English-speaking  people 
the  results  of  two  centuries  of  study  by  the  most 
eminent  Biblical  scholars. 

And  remember,  too,  that  no  previous  revision 
has  ever  had  such  advantages  as  this.  Not  to 
speak  of  the  valuable  manuscripts  available, 
"  upon  no  previous  revision  have  so  many  scholars 
been  engaged.  In  no  previous  revision  has  the 
cooperation  of  those  engaged  on  it  been  so  equally 
diffused  over  all  parts  of  the  work.  In  no  pre- 
vious revision  have  those  who  took  the  lead  in  it 
shown  so  large  a  measure  of  Christian  confidence 
in  those  who  were  outside  their  own  communion. 
In  no  previous  revision  have  such  effective  precau- 
tions been  created  by  the  very  composition  of  the 
body  of  Revisers  against  accidental  oversight  or 
against  any  lurking  bias  that  might  arise  from 
natural  tendencies  or  ecclesiastical  prepossessions. 
On  these  accounts  alone,  if  on  no  other,  this 
Revision  may  be  fairly  said  to  possess  peculiar 
claims  upon  the  confidence  of  all  thoughtful  and 
devout  readers  of  the  Bible." 


146  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 


V. 

It  was  objected  by  some,  when  this  Revision 
was  first  proposed,  that  it  would  be  dangerous  to 
unsettle  men's  faith  by  showing  them  that  the  old 
Bible  they  so  reverenced  contained  many  passages 
wrongly  translated,  and  some  even  which  had  no 
right  to  a  place  in  it  at  all.  It  is  pleasant  to  see 
that  we  have  got  more  common  sense  to-day.  It 
would  be  a  sad  case  indeed  if  men's  faith  were 
to  depend  on  their  teachers  keeping  from  them 
facts  which  they  themselves  have  long  since 
known — acting,  to  use  Dean  Stanley's  scathing 
comparison,  like  the  Greek  bishops  at  Jerusalem, 
who  pretend  at  Easter  to  receive  the  sacred  fire 
from  heaven,  and  though  they  do  not  profess  to 
believe  personally  in  the  supposed  miracle,  yet 
retain  the  ceremonial,  lest  the  ignorant  multitudes 
who  believe  in  it  should  have  their  minds  dis- 
quieted. 

Far  better  to  do  what  has  been  done — fear- 
lessly make  any  changes  that  were  necessary  to 
remove  the  few  superficial  flaws  in  our  Bible,  and 
try  to  teach  men  the  grounds  on  which  such 
changes  were  made.  Our  faith  is  given  to  the 
words  of  the  inspired  writers.  It  is  no  disparage- 
ment to  them  if  we  discover  that  fallible  men  in 
collecting  and  translating  these  words  have  some- 


THE  REVISED  VERSION.  147 

times  made  mistakes,  and  it  is  certainly  no  honour 
to  the  words  which  we  profess  to  reverence  if  we 
knowingly  allow  these  mistakes  to  remain  uncor- 
rected. 

When  King  James's  translation  was  offered 
there  was  no  such  fear  of  unsettling  men's  faith, 
for  the  men  of  that  day  had  already  four  or  five 
different  Bibles  competing  for  their  favour,  and  so 
they  easily  distinguished  between  an  Inspired 
Original  and  the  English  versions  of  that  original, 
one  of  which  might  easily  be  better  than  another. 

Rightly  understood,  this  Revision  should  be 
rather  a  ground  for  increased  confidence,  showing 
us  how  nearly  perfect  we  may  consider  our  English 
Bible  already,  when  we  find  that  this  thorough 
criticism  and  the  investigation  of  material  collect- 
ing for  the  past  two  hundred  years  has  left  un- 
changed every  doctrine  which  we  found  in  our  Old 
Version,  while  it  certainly  is  helping  us  to  under- 
stand some  of  them  more  clearly  than  we  ever  did 
before. 

VI. 

A  few  remarks  on  the  New  Revision  itself  will 
close  this  chapter.  The  Revisers  refer  to  their 
work  under  the  heads  of  Text,  Translation, 
Language,  and  Marginal  Notes. 

Whatever  may  be  thought  of  their  corrections 


148  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

of  the  Text  (i.  e.,  the  original  Hebrew  and 
Greek) ,  the  reader  is  already  in  a  position  in  some 
measure  to  judge  of  the  sources  of  information 
accessible  to  them  and  of  their  fitness  to  make  such 
corrections. 

As  to  Translation  and  Language,  perhaps 
there  is  foundation  for  the  charge,  against  the 
New  Testament  Company  at  least,  of  having  dis- 
regarded the  first  rule  laid  down  for  them  by  Con- 
vocation, "  to  introduce  as  few  alterations  as  pos- 
sible into  the  text  of  the  Authorized  Version." 
But  before  condemning  them  it  is  only  fair  to  read 
their  explanations  in  the  Preface.  It  is  also 
charged  against  them  that  their  English  is  not  as 
smooth  and  graceful  as  that  of  the  Old  Version 
to  which  we  were  accustomed.  That  is  true.  But 
this  at  least  will  be  universally  allowed,  that  if  we 
have  lost  in  smoothness  and  beauty  of  diction,  we 
have  greatly  gained  in  point  of  accuracy.  A  scru- 
pulous attention  to  the  force  of  the  Greek  article, 
the  different  tenses  of  verbs,  and  the  delicate 
shades  of  meaning  in  particles  and  prepositions, 
will  account  for  many  of  the  minor  changes, 
which,  though  they  may  seem  at  first  sight  trifling 
and  unnecessary,  will  often  be  found  to  affect  seri- 
ously the  meaning  of  a  passage.  The  Revisers 
also  claim  to  have  avoided  the  practice,  adopted  in 
the  Authorized  Version,  of  translating  for  the 
uake  of  euphony  the  same  Greek  word  by  different 


THE  REVISED  VERSION.  149 

English  words.  For  example,  we  have  comforter 
and  advocate — eternal  and  everlasting — count, 
and  impute,  and  reckon  * — as  respectively  render- 
ings of  the  same  Greek  word,  while,  on  the  other 
hand,  to  take  only  one  example,  the  word 
14  ordain  "  represents  ten  different  words  in  the 
original  Greek.  The  result  of  such  a  practice  is, 
that  the  English  reader,  using  a  Concordance  or 
the  marginal  references  of  his  Bible  to  compare 
passages  where  the  same  word  occurs,  is  some- 
times misled  and  frequently  loses  much  useful 
information. 

In  such  cases  the  Revisers  have  sacrificed  ele- 
gance   to    accuracy    of    translation,    though,    of 
course,  that  is  not  a  sufficient  plea,  unless  it  can 
i  be  shown  that  elegance  and  accuracy  cannot  here 
go  together. 

The  Marginal  Notes  contain  much  valuable 
information,  and  often  throw  fresh  light  on  the 
translation  in  the  text.  But  it  is  to  be  regretted 
that  in  a  book  intended  for  indiscriminate  circula- 
tion the  Revisers  have  used  one  class  of  these 
notes  rather  unguardedly.  When  such  expres- 
sions are  found  as  "  Some  manuscripts  read  the 
passage  thus,"   "  Some  ancient    authorities  omit 

1In  Rom.  iv.,  Authorized  Version,  these  three  verbs  are  use<J 
to  represent  one  Greek  verb.  Let  the  reader  turn  to  the  Revised 
Version,  where  the  word  "  reckon  "  is  used  throughout  the  chap- 
ter, and  he  will  see  how  much  St.  Paul's  argument  has  gained  in 
clearness  though  perhaps  the  passage  in  reading  does  not  soun<i 
quite  as  well  as  before. 


150  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

these  words, "  &c,  the  reader  who  understands  the 
state  of  the  case  sees  nothing  disturbing  in  the  fact 
that  out  of  a  large  number  of  authorities  examined 
some  few  should  vary  from  the  reading  found  in 
all  the  others.  Such  readers  the  Revisers  seem  to 
have  had  in  view.  They  did  not  enough  think 
themselves  into  the  position  of  the  plain  simple 
men  and  women  who  have  never  heard  of  such 
matters,  and  on  whom  one  cannot  help  fearing, 
from  the  frequent  repetition  of  such  notes,  they 
are  likely  to  have  a  disturbing  effect  which  is  in 
reality  quite  unwarranted. 

A  very  valuable  improvement  is  the  arrange- 
ment of  the  text  into  paragraphs  adapted  to  the 
subject.  The  continuity  of  thought  is  not,  as  in 
our  Authorized  Version,  interrupted  by  frequent 
and  often  very  injudicious  breaks  into  verses, 
while  yet  the  facilities  for  reference  are  retained 
by  the  numbering  of  the  old  division  in  the  margin. 
The  printing  of  the  Poetical  Books  in  proper 
metrical  form  may  be  considered,  too,  a  decided 
advantage.  They  were  directed  also  to  revise  the 
headings  of  chapters,  and  it  would  certainly  be 
an  advantage  if  this  were  well  done,  adapting  it 
to  the  paragraph  system.  But  there  is  much  force 
in  their  reason  for  leaving  it  undone.  It  involved 
in  many  cases  expressions  of  theological  opinion 
which  could  not  fairly  find  a  place  in  the  Bible. 
Indeed,  Jewish  readers  have  had  to  complain  of 


THE  REVISED  VERSION.  151 

the  Old  Testament  chapter  headings  in  the 
Authorized  Version,  that  when  the  prophets  speak 
of  sin  it  is  always  the  sin  of  the  Jews,  but  when 
of  glory  and  of  holiness,  it  is  the  glory  and  holi- 
ness of  the  Church. 

On  the  whole,  whatever  the  imperfections  of 
the  Revised  Bible,  and  whatever  its  fate  may  be 
in  the  future,  we  may  at  the  very  least  claim  a 
present  position  for  it  as  a  most  valuable  com- 
mentary to  the  readers  of  the  Authorized  Version, 
placing  them  as  nearly  as  an  English  version  can 
do  on  the  level  with  the  reader  of  the  original 
tongues. 

VII. 

r 

But  this  is  not  to  be  the  last  stage  in  the  history 
of  the  English  Bible.  Through  all  these  centuries 
its  language  has  grown  in  beauty,  in  clearness,  in 
expressiveness,  with  the  growth  of  the  national 
life  and  thought  and  religion.  It  is  more  than  any 
other  a  "  National  Bible,"  growing  as  the  nation 
grew. 

The  German  Bible  is  the  work  of  one  man, 
Luther.  The  English  Bible  is  the  work  of  many 
generations  of  Englishmen.  Caedmon  and  Alfred, 
Bede  and  Wycliffe,  Tyndale  and  Coverdale, 
handed  on  the  torch  from  one  generation  to 
another,  and  from  Wycliffe's  day  at  least  handed 
on  the  words  and  phrases  and  forms  of  expres- 


152  HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  BIBLE. 

sion  which  have  largely  influenced  the  making  of 
the  English  language.  The  history  of  the  book  is 
interwoven  with  the  national  history  of  freedom 
and  independence  and  personal  religion.  There- 
fore it  is  to  us  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  not  only 
the  Word  of  God  but  also  and  essentially  our 
National  Book. 

But  we  have  not  yet  produced  our  best.  This 
Revised  Version  of  1880  is  not  our  last  word.  It 
ought  to  have  been  a  great  success.  It  had  more 
in  its  favour  than  any  previous  version.  And  yet 
we  have  to  say,  after  thirty  years,  that  the  old 
Authorized  Version,  with  all  its  defects,  is  still 
holding  the  ground,  going  out  every  year  in  quan- 
tities a  hundred  times  greater  than  those  of  the 
Revised  Version. 

The  Old  Version  holds  the  ground  not  only  by 
the  familiarity  of  its  language  but  by  its  wonderful 
charm.  It  is  universally  accepted  as  a  literary 
masterpiece,  as  the  noblest  and  most  beautiful 
book  in  the  world.  The  New  Version  is  more 
accurate,  more  scholarly,  more  valuable.  But  it 
avails  not.  It  lacks  the  literary  charm.  The  ver- 
dict of  the  people  is,  "  The  old  is  better." 

On  the  whole  we  may  assume  that  far  into  the 
twentieth  century  the  Authorized  Version  will  still 
remain  the  popular  Bible.  The  version  that  is  to 
supersede  it  will  come  some  day,  but  when  it  does 
it  will  have  more  than  accurate  scholarship.     It 


THE  REVISED  VERSION.  153 

will  have  in  some  degree  at  least  the  literary 
charm  and  beauty  which  for  300  years  has 
brought  the  whole  English  world  under  the  spell 
of  the  old  Bible. 

And  now  we  have  followed  the  story  of  the 
Bible  from  the  old  record  chest  of  Ephesus  1800 
years  ago  to  the  Revised  Version  which  is  in  our 
hands  to-day,  and  it  is  hoped  that  the  question  has 
been  in  some  measure  answered,  How  we  got  our 
Bible. 

Let  the  story  help  us  to  value  our  Bible  more. 
It  is  not  without  purpose  that  God  has  so  wonder- 
fully inspired  and  preserved  His  message;  it  is 
not  without  purpose  that  He  raised  up  His  work- 
ers to  search  out  the  precious  manuscripts  from  the 
dusty  libraries  of  convent  and  cathedral,  to  collect 
and  compare  then  together  with  such  toil  and  care, 
and  then  to  render  into  clear,  graceful  English  for 
us  the  very  message  which  He  sent  to  earth  thou- 
sands of  years  since  to  comfort  and  brighten 
human  life.  "  Other  men  indeed  have  laboured, 
and  we  have  entered  into  their  labours. " 

May  it  please  Him  who  has  so  preserved  for  us 
His  Word  to  grant  us  all  "  increase  of  grace  to 
hear  meekly  that  Word,  and  to  receive  it  with  pure 
affection,  and  to  bring  forth  the  fruits  of  the 
Spirit"! 

THE  END. 


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